OF  CALIF.  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 


By  Cynthia  Stockley 
Poppy 

The  Story  of  a  South  African  Giri 

The  Claw 

A  Story  of  South  Africa 

Wanderfoot 
Wild  Honey 

Virginia  of  the  Rhodesians 
Blue  Aloes 


BLUE   ALOES 

STORIES  OF  SOUTH  AFRICA 


BY 

CYNTHIA  STOCKLEY 

Author  of  "  Poppy,"  "  Wild  Honey,"  etc. 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK   AND   LONDON 

Cbe  'Knickerbocker  press 
1919 


COPYRIGHT,  1919 

BY 
CYNTHIA  STOCKLEY 


Ube  *n(cherbocher  prees,  Hew 


CONTENTS 

PAGB 

BLUE  ALOES          .....  i 

THE  LEOPARD        ......       93 

ROSANNE   OZANNE j^y 

APRIL  FOLLY          .....  247 


2133054 


Blue  Aloes 

THe  Strange  Story  of  a   Karoo  Farm 


PART   I 

N  IGHT,  with  the  sinister,  brooding  peace  of  the  desert, 
enwrapped  the  land,  and  the  inmates  of  the  old  Karoo 
farm  had  long  been  at  rest;  but  it  was  an  hour  when 
strange  tree-creatures  cry  with  the  voices  of  human 
beings,  and  stealthy  velvet-footed  things  prowl  through 
places  forbidden  by  day,  and  not  all  who  rested  at  Blue 
Aloes  were  sleeping. 

Christine  Chaine,  wakeful  and  nervous,  listening  to 
the  night  sounds,  found  them  far  more  distracting  than 
any  the  day  could  produce.  Above  the  breathing  of 
the  three  children  sleeping  near  her  in  the  big  room, 
the  buzz  of  a  moth-beetle  against  the  ceiling,  and  the 
far-off  howling  of  jackals,  she  could  hear  something 
out  in  the  garden  sighing  with  faint,  whistling  sighs. 
More  disquieting  still  was  a  gentle,  intermittent  tap- 
ping on  the  closed  and  heavily  barred  shutters,  inside 
which  the  windows  stood  open,  inviting  coolness.  She 
had  heard  that  tapping  every  one  of  the  three  nights 
since  she  came  to  the  farm. 


2  Blue  Aloes 

The  window  stood  to  the  right  of  her  bed,  and,  by 
stretching  an  arm,  she  could  have  unbolted  the 
shutters  and  looked  out,  but  she  would  have  died 
rather  than  do  it.  Not  that  she  was  a  coward.  But 
there  was  some  sinister  quality  in  the  night  noises 
of  this  old  Karoo  farm  that  weighed  on  her  courage 
and  paralyzed  her  senses.  So,  instead  of  stirring,  she 
lay  very  still  in  the  darkness,  the  loud,  uncertain 
beats  of  her  heart  adding  themselves  to  all  the  other 
disconcerting  sounds. 

Mrs.  van  Cannan  had  laughed  her  lazy,  liquid 
laugh  when  Christine  spoke,  the  first  morning  after 
her  arrival,  of  the  tapping. 

"It  was  probably  a  stray  ostrich  pecking  on  your 
shutters,"  said  the  mistress  of  Blue  Aloes.  "You 
are  strange  to  the  Karoo,  my  dear.  When  you  have 
been  here  a  month,  you'll  take  no  notice  of  night 
noises." 

There  was  possibly  truth  in  the  prophecy,  but 
Christine  doubted  it.  There  were  also  moments  when 
she  doubted  being  able  to  last  a  week  out  at  the  farm, 
to  say  nothing  of  a  month.  That  was  only  in  the 
night  watches,  however;  by  day,  she  found  it  hard  to 
imagine  any  circumstances  so  unpleasant  as  to  induce 
her  to  leave  the  three  little  van  Cannan  children,  who, 
even  in  so  short  a  time,  had  managed  to  twine  their 
fingers  and  their  mops  of  bronze  hair  round  her 
affections. 

The  tapping  began  again,  soft  and  insistent. 
Christine  knew  it  was  not  a  branch,  for  she  had  taken 
the  trouble  to  ascertain;  and  that  a  stray  ostrich  should 
choose  her  window  to  peck  at  for  three  nights  running 
seemed  fantastic.  Irrelatively,  one  of  the  children  mur- 
mured drowsily  in  sleep,  and  the  little  human  sound 


Blue  Aloes  3 

braced  the  girl's  nerves.  The  sense  of  loneliness  left 
her,  giving  place  to  courageous  resolution.  She  for- 
got everything  save  that  she  was  responsible  for  the 
protection  of  the  children,  and  determined  that  the 
tapping  must  be  investigated,  once  and  for  all.  Just 
as  she  was  stirring,  the  soft  sighing  recommenced  close 
to  the  shutters,  followed  by  three  clear  taps.  Chris- 
tine changed  her  mind  about  getting  out  of  bed,  but 
she  leaned  toward  the  window  on  her  elbow,  and  said, 
in  a  low  voice  that  trembled  a  little: 

"  Is  any  one  there?" 

A  whistling  whisper  answered  her: 

"  Take  care  of  the  children. " 

With  the  words,  a  strangely  revolting  odour  came 
stealing  through  the  shutters.  The  girl  shrank  back, 
all  her  fears  returning.  Yet  she  forced  herself  to  speak 
again. 

"Who  is  it?     What  do  you  want?" 

"Mind  the  boy — take  care  of  the  boy,"  sobbed  the 
whistling  voice,  and  again  the  foul  odour  stole  into  the 
room.  It  seemed  to  Christine  the  smell  of  something 
dead  and  rotten  and  old.  She  could  not  bear  it. 
Hatred  of  it  was  greater  than  fear,  and,  springing 
from  her  bed,  she  wrestled  with  the  bolts  of  the  shut- 
ters. But  when  she  threw  them  open  there  was — 
nothing!  Darkness  stood  without  like  a  presence, 
and  seemed  to  push  against  the  shutters,  trying  to 
enter  as  she  hastily  rebarred  them. 

Something  was  stirring  in  the  room,  too.  With 
hands  that  shook,  she  lit  the  candle  and,  by  its  gleam, 
discovered  Roderick,  the  eldest  child,  sitting  up  in 
bed,  his  red-gold  mop  all  tumbled,  his  eyes,  full  of 
dreams,  fixed  on  her  with  a  wide  stare.  She  crossed 
the  room  and  knelt  beside  him. 


4  Blue  Aloes 

"What  is  it,  darling?" 

"I  thought  my  nannie  was  there,"  he  murmured. 

"Your  nannie?"  she  echoed,  in  surprise,  knowing 
that  "nannie"  was  the  common  name  for  any  black 
nurse  who  tended  and  waited  on  them.  "  But  she  is 
in  bed  and  asleep  long  ago." 

"  I  don't  mean  that  one.  I  mean  my  nannie  what's 
dead — Sophy. " 

The  girl's  backbone  grew  chill.  She  remembered 
hearing  that  the  children  had  been  always  minded  by 
an  educated  old  Basuto  woman  called  Sophy,  who 
had  been  a  devoted  slave  to  each  from  birth  up,  and 
because  of  whose  death,  a  few  months  back,  a  series  of 
English  governesses  had  come  and  gone  at  the  farm. 
She  remembered,  too,  those  fluty  whispers  that  re- 
sembled no  human  voice. 

"Lie  down,  darling,  and  sleep,"  she  said  gently.  "  I 
will  stay  by  you." 

The  boy  did  not  instantly  obey.  He  had  a  whim  to 
sit  up,  watching.  There  was  no  fear  in  his  wide  grey 
eyes,  but  it  was  uncanny  to  see  them  searching  the 
shadows  of  the  room  and  returning  always,  with  a 
fixed,  somnambulistic  stare,  to  the  window.  Christine 
had  a  fancy  that  children,  with  the  memories  of 
another  world  clinging  to  them,  have  a  vision  of  un- 
seen things  denied  to  older  people;  and  she  wondered 
painfully  what  was  going  on  in  the  mind  behind  this 
handsome  little  face.  At  last,  she  prevailed  upon  him 
to  lie  down,  but  it  was  long  before  he  slept.  Even 
then,  she  sat  on,  holding  his  hand,  keeping  vigil  over 
him  and  the  two  other  small  sleepers. 

They  were  lovely  children.  Each  head  glowed  red- 
gold  upon  its  pillow,  and  each  little  profile  was  of  a  regu- 
larity almost  classical,  with  the  pure  colouring  peculiar 


Blue  Aloes  5 

to  red-haired  people.  The  boy's  face  was  well 
sprinkled  with  freckles,  but  five-year-old  Marguerite 
and  little  Coral,  of  four,  who  were  perfect  little  imps 
of  mischief,  had  the  dainty  snow-pink  look  of  daisies 
growing  in  a  meadow  with  their  faces  turned  up  to 
God. 

It  was  difficult  to  connect  such  fragrant,  well- 
tended  flowers  with  the  whistling  horror  out  in  the 
darkness.  More,  it  was  absurd,  impossible.  The 
girl  decided  that  the  whole  thing  was  a  bad  nightmare 
which  she  must  shake  off.  The  explanation  of  it 
could  only  be  that,  half  asleep,  she  had  dreamed  she 
heard  the  tapping  and  the  whispers,  and  smelled  the 
evil  odour.  Why  should  a  Thing  come  and  tell  her 
to  mind  the  children?  "Mind  tie  boy."  He  was 
already  minded — they  were  all  happy  and  well  cared 
for  in  their  own  home.  The  boy  Roderick  must  have 
been  dreaming,  too,  and  talking  in  his  sleep.  Thus, 
Christine's  clear  English  mind  rejected  the  whole  thing 
as  an  illusion,  resulting  from  weariness  and  the  new, 
strange  conditions  of  her  life.  Yet  there  was  an  Irish 
side  to  her  that  could  not  so  easily  dispose  of  the 
matter.  She  remembered  with  what  uneasiness  her 
nights  had  been  haunted  from  the  first.  How  always, 
when  the  dark  fell,  she  had  sensed  something  uncanny, 
something  unseen  and  menacing,  that  she  could 
never  track  to  its  source.  But  tonight  the  sense  of 
hovering  evil  had  taken  definite  form  and  direction. 
It  was  at  the  children  that  harm  was  directed;  the 
whistling,  sighing  words  had  concerned  the  children 
only.  The  girl  shivered  again  at  the  horrid  recol- 
lection. 

"  Yet  anything  that  cares  about  children  cannot  be 
altogether  evil,"  she  thought.  That  comforted  her  a 


6  Blue  Aloes 

little,  but  the  spell  of  horror  the  night  had  laid  upon 
her  was  not  lifted  until  dawn  came.  Then  she  slipped 
on  some  clothes  and  let  herself  out  into  the  morning 
air. 

The  garden  that  straggled  about  the  farm  was  com- 
posed of  a  dozen  century-old  oaks,  a  sprinkling  of 
feathery  pepper-trees,  and  many  clumps  of  brilliant- 
blossomed  cacti.  The  veranda  and  outbuildings  were 
heavily  hung  with  creepers,  and  great  barrels  of 
begonias  and  geraniums  stood  about.  Within  a  few 
hundred  yards  of  the  house,  the  green  and  glowing 
cultivation  stopped  as  abruptly  as  the  edges  of  an  oasis 
in  the  desert,  and  the  Karoo  began — that  sweeping, 
high  table-land,  empty  of  all  but  brown  stones,  long 
white  thorns,  fantastically  shaped  clumps  of  prickly- 
pear,  bare  brown  hills,  and  dried-up  rivulets,  and  that 
yet  is  one  of  the  healthiest  and,  from  the  farmer's  point 
of  view,  wealthiest  plateaux  in  the  world. 

Between  the  farm  and  the  far  hills  arose  a  curious 
line  of  shroudy  blue,  seeming  to  hover  round  the 
estate,  mystically  encircling  it,  and  cutting  it  off  from 
the  rest  of  the  desert.  This  was  the  century-old  hedge 
of  blue  aloes  which  gave  the  farm  its  name.  Planted 
in  a  huge  ring  of  many  miles'  circumference,  the  great 
spiked  cacti,  with  leaves  thick  and  flat  as  hide  shields, 
and  pointed  as  steel  spears,  made  a  barrier  against 
cattle,  ostriches,  and  human  beings  that  was  impass- 
able except  by  the  appointed  gaps.  No  doubt  it  had 
a  beauty  all  its  own,  but  beneath  its  fantastic,  isolated 
blooms  and  leaves  of  Madonna  blue,  the  gnarled 
roots  sheltered  a  hundred  varieties  of  poisonous 
reptiles  and  insects.  That  is  why,  in  Africa,  no  one 
likes  blue  aloes — they  always  harbour  death. 

Dawn  on  the  Karoo  more  than  compensates  for  its 


Blue  Aloes  7 

fearsome  nights  and  torrid  noontides.  The  dew, 
jewelling  a  thousand  spider-webs,  the  sparkling  bright- 
ness of  the  air,  the  exquisite  purity  of  the  atmos- 
phere, and  grandeur  of  space  and  loneliness  rimmed 
about  by  rose-tipped  skies  and  far  forget-me-not 
hills  make  a  magic  to  catch  the  heart  in  a  net  from 
which  it  never  quite  escapes. 

Christine  felt  this  enchantment  as  she  wandered 
across  the  veld,  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  hills  from  behind 
which  the  sun  would  presently  emerge  to  fill  the  land 
with  a  clear,  pitiless  heat  that  turned  everything 
curiously  grey.  A  dam  of  water  reflecting  pink  cloud- 
tips  lay  bright  and  still  as  a  sheet  of  steel.  The  fields 
of  lucerne,  under  the  morning  light,  were  softly  turn- 
ing from  black  to  emerald,  and  beyond  the  aloe 
hedge  a  native  kraal  that  was  scattered  on  the  side 
of  a  hill  slowly  woke  to  life.  A  dog  barked;  a  wisp 
of  smoke  curled  between  the  thatched  huts,  and  one 
or  two  blanketed  figures  crept  from  the  low  doors. 
The  simple  yet  secret  lives  of  these  people  intrigued 
Christine  deeply.  She  knew  little  of  Kafirs,  for  she 
had  been  in  Africa  only  a  few  months;  but  the  impass- 
ive silence  of  them  behind  their  watching,  alert  eyes 
always  fascinated  her.  They  said  so  little  before  their 
masters,  the  whites.  Here,  for  instance,  was  a  little 
colony  of  fifty  or  more  people  living  in  a  kraal  close  to 
their  employers.  Some  of  them  were  grey-haired  and 
had  worked  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  on  the  farm — 
the  men  on  the  land,  the  women  at  the  house — yet, 
once  their  daily  tasks  were  over,  none  knew  what 
their  lives  were  when  they  returned  to  the  straggling 
village  of  palisades  and  low-doored  huts. 

Musing  on  these  things,  Christine  turned  at  last 
and  sauntered  slowly  homeward.  Everything  was 


8  Blue  Aloes 

still  very  quiet,  but  smoke  was  rising  from  the  solid 
farm  chimneys,  and,  rounding  the  corners  of  some 
large  outbuildings,  she  came  suddenly  upon  more  life — 
feathery,  fantastic  life  of  spindlelegs  and  fluttering 
wings.  Scores  of  baby  ostriches,  just  released  from 
their  night  shelter,  were  racing  into  the  morning 
light,  pirouetting  round  each  other  like  crazy,  gleesome 
sprites.  Christine  stood  laughing  at  their  fandangos 
and  the  antics  of  the  Kafirs  engaged  in  herding 
them.  A  man  standing  near,  pipe  in  mouth,  and 
hands  in  pockets,  observing  the  same  scene,  was 
astonished  that  her  sad  yet  passionate  face  could 
so  change  under  the  spell  of  laughter.  He  had 
wondered,  when  he  first  saw  her,  why  a  girl  with  such 
ardent  eyes  should  wear  such  weariness  upon  her  lips 
and  look  so  disdainfully  at  life.  Now  he  saw  that  it 
was  a  mask  she  wore  and  forgot  when  she  was  alone, 
and  he  wondered  still  more  what  had  brought  such  a 
girl  to  be  a  governess  on  a  Karoo  farm. 

But  in  a  moment  Christine's  face  changed,  resuming, 
like  a  veil  over  its  youth  and  bloom,  the  look  of  world- 
weariness.  She  bowed  slightly  to  him,  with  a  some- 
what cool  response  to  his  pleasant  morning  greeting, 
and  made  haste  to  resume  her  walk  homeward. 

She  knew  him  to  be  Richard  Saltire,  the  government 
forest  and  land  expert,  who  was  engaged  in  certain 
experiments  on  the  farm.  He  shared  a  bungalow 
somewhere  on  the  land  with  two  young  Hollanders 
who  were  learning  ostrich-farming,  and  came  with 
them  to  lunch  every  day  at  the  house.  Already,  his 
bold,  careless  face,  with  its  sunbitten  beauty,  had 
separated  itself  in  her  memory  from  the  faces  of  the 
other  men,  for  it  was  a  face  and  personality  that  could 
not  leave  a  woman  undisturbed.  Incidentally,  it 


Blue  Aloes  9 

had  disturbed  her  in  connection  with  an  impression 
not  altogether  agreeable. 

One  of  the  first  hints  Mrs.  van  Cannan  had  given 
the  new  governess  was  that  the  master  of  Blue  Aloes 
did  not  care  for  any  kind  of  intimacy  to  exist  between 
the  womenfolk  of  the  farm  and  the  men  occupied 
about  it.  Christine  had  been  long  enough  in  South 
Africa  to  recognize  that  this  was  an  odd  departure 
from  the  general  rule  of  friendliness  and  equality; 
but  a  hint  to  the  proud  has  the  same  efficacy  as  a  word 
to  the  wise.  Besides,  she  had  no  longing  for  the 
society  of  men,  but  rather  a  wish  to  forget  that  she 
had  ever  known  any.  Life  had  made  a  hole  in  her 
heart  which  she  meant  to  fill  if  she  could,  but  only 
with  inanimate  things  and  the  love  of  children.  So 
that  Mr.  van  Cannan's  unsociable  restriction,  far 
from  being  irksome,  suited  her  perfectly. 

Mrs.  van  Cannan  apparently  did  not  apply  to  her- 
self her  husband's  injunction,  for  she  was  charming 
to  everybody,  and  especially  to  Mr.  Saltire.  It  was 
impossible  not  to  notice  this,  and  also  that  the  fact  was 
not  lost  upon  the  gloomy,  fanatic  glance  of  the  master 
of  the  house. 

If  Mr.  Saltire  showed  bad  taste  in  so  openly 
returning  Mrs.  van  Cannan's  interest,  it  had  to  be 
admitted  that  it  was  the  form  of  bad  taste  that  is  a 
law  unto  itself  and  takes  no  thought  of  the  opinion 
of  others.  Although  Africa  had  spoiled  Saltire's 
complexion,  it  was  evident  that  she  had  never  bowed 
his  neck  or  put  humility  into  his  eye  or  made  him 
desist  from  looking  over  his  boldly  cut  nose  as  though 
he  had  bought  the  world  and  did  not  want  it. 

But  to  Christine  Chaine  it  seemed  that  to  cause 
pain  to  a  man  racked  with  neuritis  and  jealousy  for  the 


io  Blue  Aloes 

sake  of  a  mild  flirtation  with  a  pretty  woman  was  a 
cruel  as  well  as  a  dangerous  game.  That  was  one  of 
the  reasons  why  the  friendliness  of  his  morning  greet- 
ing had  been  met  with  such  coldness.  She  had  known 
heartlessness  before  in  her  life,  and  wished  no  further 
acquaintance  with  it.  That  was  the  resolution  with 
which  she  hurried  back  through  the  straggling  garden, 
the  whitewashed  porch,  and  massive  front  door  to  the 
nursery. 

The  children,  full  of  high  spirits  and  wilfulness,  were 
engaged  in  their  morning  romp  of  trying  to  evade 
Meekie,  the  colored  "nannie, "  whose  business  it  was 
to  bathe  them. 

They  were  extraordinarily  lovable  children,  in  spite 
of  a  certain  elf-like  disobedience  which  possessed  them 
like  a  disease.  It  was  quite  enough  to  tell  them  not 
to  do  a  thing  for  them  to  be  eaten  up  with  a  desire  to 
do  it  forthwith.  Christine  had  discovered  this,  and 
had  learned  to  manage  them  in  other  ways  than 
by  direct  command. 

"Take  Roddy — no;  take  Coral,  she  is  the  dirtiest — 
no,  no — Rita!  Rita  is  the  pig!"  they  shrieked,  as 
they  pranced  from  bed  to  bed.  "  Bathe  yourself,  old 
Meekie — you  are  the  blackest  of  all." 

Christine  had  her  work  cut  out  with  them  for  the 
next  half-hour,  but  at  last  they  were  marshalled,  sweet 
and  shining,  to  breakfast,  where  she  presided,  for  their 
father  always  took  an  early  breakfast,  and  Mrs.  van 
Cannan  never  rose  until  eleven.  Afterward,  accord- 
ing to  custom,  they  paid  a  visit  to  the  latter's  room,  to 
wish  her  good-morning. 

Isabel  van  Cannan  was  a  big,  lazy,  laughing  woman, 
with  sleepy,  golden  eyes.  She  spent  hours  in  bed, 
lying,  as  she  did  now,  amid  quantities  of  pillows, 


Blue  Aloes  n 

doing  absolutely  nothing.  She  had  told  Christine 
that  she  was  of  Spanish  extraction,  yet  she  was  blond 
as  a  Swede.  Her  hair,  which  had  a  sort  of  lamb's-woo! 
fluffiness,  lay  upon  her  pillows  in  two  great  ropes, 
yellow  as  the  pollen  of  a  lily.  She  took  the  children 
one  by  one  into  a  sleepy  embrace,  kissed  and  patted 
their  cheeks,  admonishing  them  to  be  good  and  obey 
Miss  Chaine  in  everything. 

"Be  sure  not  to  go  in  the  sun  without  your  hats," 
she  adjured  the  two  small  girls.  "  Roddy  doesn't 
matter  so  much,  but  little  girls'  complexions  are  very 
important." 

Rita  and  Coral  stuck  out  their  rose-pink  chins  and 
exchanged  a  sparkling  glance.  Christine  knew  that 
she  would  have  trouble  with  them  and  their  hats  all 
day. 

"Good-bye,"  said  Mrs.  van  Cannan,  and  sank  back 
among  her  pillows.  As  the  children  scampered  out  of 
the  room,  she  called  sharply,  "Don't  go  near  the 
dam,  Roddy!" 

Christine  had  heard  her  say  that  before,  and  always 
with  that  sharp  inflection. 

"  I  never  let  them  go  near  the  dam  without  me,"  she 
said  reassuringly.  Mrs.  van  Cannan  did  not  answer, 
but  a  quiver,  as  if  of  pain,  passed  over  her  closed  eye- 
lids. 

Outside  in  the  passage,  Roderick  pressed  close  to 
Christine  and  murmured,  with  a  sort  of  elfin  sadness: 

"Carol  was  drowned  in  the  dam." 

The  girl  was  startled. 

"  Carol? "  she  echoed.     "  Who  was  Carol?" 

"My  big  brother — a  year  older  than  me,"  he 
whispered.  "  He  is  buried  out  in  the  graveyard.  I'll 
take  you  to  see  the  place  if  you  like.  Let  us  go  now." 


12  Blue  Aloes 

Christine  collected  herself. 

"  We  must  go  to  lessons  now,  dear.  Later  on,  you 
shall  show  me  anything  you  like." 

But  from  time  to  time  during  the  morning,  sitting  in 
the  creeper-trimmed  summer-house  they  used  for  a 
school-room,  with  her  charges  busy  round  her,  Chris- 
tine's thoughts  returned  to  the  strange  little  revelation. 
Roddy,  with  his  red-gold  brush  of  hair,  bent  over  his 
slate,  was  not  the  first-born,  then!  He  had  been 
drowned  in  the  dam — that  peaceful  sheet  of  walled-in 
water  that  reflected  the  pink  tips  of  dawn  and  wherein, 
at  eventide,  the  cattle  waded  happily  to  drink.  This 
old  Karoo  farmhouse  had  known  tragedy,  even  as 
she  had  sensed.  Small  wonder  Bernard  van  Cannan's 
eyes  wore  a  haunted  look!  Yet  his  wife,  with  her  full 
happy  laugh  and  golden  locks,  lying  among  her  pil- 
lows, seemed  curiously  untouched  by  sorrow.  Except 
for  that  quiver  of  the  eyelids,  Christine  had  never  seen 
her  show  anything  but  a  contented  face  to  life. 

Well — the  history  of  Blue  Aloes  was  a  sealed  book 
when  the  girl  came  to  it,  knowing  nothing  of  its 
inmates  beyond  their  excellent  references  as  an  old 
Huguenot  family.  Now  the  book,  slowly  opening 
page  by  page,  was  revealing  strange  things. 

The  luncheon-hour  always  provided  fresh  material 
for  a  reflective  mind.  The  dining-room  was  large  and 
lofty,  and  the  table  must  have  dated  back  to  the 
early  days  at  the  Cape,  when  every  great  family  had 
its  scores  of  retainers  and  slaves.  It  was  composed  of 
time-stained  teak,  and  could  have  seated  dozens, 
being  curiously  shaped  like  a  capital  E  with  the 
middle  branch  of  the  letter  missing.  Only  one  of  the 
branches  was  now  in  use,  and  at  this  Christine  pre- 
sided over  her  small  charges,  fortunately  somewhat 


Blue  Aloes  13 

aloof  from  the  rest,  for  they  had  many  odd  habits 
which  it  was  her  business  to  correct  without  drawing 
attention.  Coral  did  not  like  pumpkin,  and  would 
keep  dropping  it  on  the  floor.  Rita  loved  to  kill  flies 
with  a  spoon.  Roddy's  specialty  was  sliding  bits  of 
meat  into  the  open  jaws  of  a  pointer — there  were 
always  several  under  the  table — then  briskly  passing 
his  plate  for  more.  Once  or  twice,  looking  up  from 
correcting  these  idiosyncrasies,  the  girl  found  the 
blue  eyes  of  Richard  Saltire  fixed  upon  her  as  if  in 
ironic  inquiry,  and  though  she  felt  the  slow  colour 
creep  into  her  face,  she  returned  the  glance  coldly. 
How  dare  he  be  curious  about  her,  she  thought  rather 
angrily.  Let  him  confine  himself  to  making  the  lids  of 
his  hostess  droop  and  her  cheeks  dimple.  Not  that 
Christine  believed  there  to  be  any  harm  in  their  open 
flirtation — Mrs.  van  Cannan  was  plainly  devoted  to 
her  husband;  perhaps  it  was  natural  that  she  should 
enjoy  admiration.  She  possessed  the  kind  of  beauty 
only  to  be  achieved  by  the  woman  who  makes  the  care 
of  her  appearance  an  art,  and  spends  hours  in  absolute 
repose  of  mind  and  body.  Her  face  had  not  a  line  in 
it  of  strain  or  sorrow.  Faint  pink  tinted  her  cheeks. 
Her  pink-linen  gown,  open  in  a  low  V,  showed  the 
perfect  contour  and  creaminess  of  her  breast.  The 
restless,  adoring  eyes  of  her  husband  came  back  to  her 
always  with  that  glance,  vigilant  and  sombre,  that 
was  peculiar  to  them. 

With  some  assumption  of  state,  he  always  sat  in  the 
centre  of  the  body  of  the  table,  with  his  wife  beside 
him.  Saltire  sat  at  her  right,  and  Saxby,  the  over- 
seer, was  placed  beside  his  host.  Opposite  them,  on 
the  other  side  of  the  table,  were  the  two  young  Hol- 
landers and  a  cheerful  Scotch  colonial  called  McNeil. 


14  Blue  Aloes 

These  six  men  were  expected  to  take  both  luncheon 
and  dinner  at  the  farm,  but  only  the  Hollanders  turned 
up  in  the  evening,  perhaps  because  the  excellence  of 
the  fare  was  outbalanced  by  the  long  prayers  and 
hymns  with  which  the  meal  was  prefaced  and  ended. 
Even  at  lunch-time,  there  was  a  Bible  at  the  host's 
elbow,  from  which  he  read  a  number  of  texts  before 
pronouncing  a  long  grace,  while  the  visitors  listened 
with  expressions  that  varied  from  embarrassment  to 
impatience.  Richard  Saltire  always  looked  frankly 
bored,  but  sometimes  he  and  Mrs.  van  Cannan  ex- 
changed a  smile  of  sympathy  at  having  to  listen  to  the 
maledictions  of  Job  while  the  roast  was  getting  cold. 
Hymns  for  lunch  were  mercifully  omitted.  Bernard 
van  Cannan,  though  plainly  a  religious  fanatic,  was 
also  the  owner  of  one  of  the  wealthiest  farms  in  the 
colony,  and  no  doubt  he  realized  that  the  working- 
hours  of  his  employees  might  be  more  profitably 
engaged  than  by  chanting  hymns. 

Saxby,  the  overseer,  a  dark,  burly  man  of  unusual 
height,  was  marked  by  the  thick  lips  and  general 
fulness  of  countenance  that  suggests  to  those  who  have 
lived  long  enough  in  Africa  "a  touch  of  colour."  He 
had  the  soft  voice,  too,  and  full,  deep  laugh  of  those 
who  have  a  dash  of  native  blood  in  their  veins.  His 
manner  was  melancholy,  though  charming,  and  he 
imposed  his  society  upon  no  man,  but  attended 
strictly  to  his  business.  He  was  the  best  manager  the 
farm  had  ever  known.  After  being  there  for  less  than 
a  year,  he  had  so  improved  the  stock  and  the  land  that 
Bernard  van  Cannan  looked  upon  him  as  a  little  god, 
and  his  word  was  law  on  the  farm.  Hrs  private 
history,  a  rather  sad  one,  Christine  had  already  heard 
from  Mrs.  van  Cannan.  It  appeared  that  his  wife 


Blue  Aloes  15 

had  been  terribly  disfigured  in  a  fire  and  was  not  only  a 
semi-invalid  but  a  victim  of  melancholia.  She  lived 
with  him  in  an  isolated  bungalow  some  way  off,  and 
he  did  everything  for  her  with  his  own  hands  as  she 
shrank  from  being  seen  by  any  one,  and  particularly 
detested  natives.  While  her  husband  was  away  at  his 
duties,  she  remained  locked  in  the  bungalow,  inaccessi- 
ble to  any  one  save  Mrs.  van  Cannan,  who  sometimes 
went  to  sit  with  her. 

"But  I  can't  bear  to  go  often,"  Isabel  van  Cannan 
told  Miss  Chaine.  "She  depresses  me  so  terribly, 
and  what  good  can  I  do  her,  poor  soul?" 

Unnecessary  for  her  to  add  that  she  hated  being 
depressed.  It  was  bad  for  the  complexion,  she 
laughed.  Laughter  was  never  far  from  her  lips.  But, 
at  the  moment,  there  really  seemed  some  trace  of  the 
morning's  pain  on  her  as  she  looked  at  her  husband. 

"  Bernard's  shoulder  is  giving  him  so  much  trouble, " 
she  said  appealingly  to  Saltire.  "  He  wants  to  go  to 
East  London  to  see  his  old  specialist,  but  I  don't  be- 
lieve in  that  man.  I  think  rest  in  bed  is  the  cure  for 
all  ills.  Don't  you  agree  with  me,  Mr.  Saltire?" 

"Bed  has  its  uses  no  doubt,"  laughed  Saltire,  with 
the  cheerful  carelessness  of  the  thoroughly  healthy 
man,  "  but  a  change  of  scene  is  better  sometimes,  for 
some  people." 

Van  Cannan,  his  shoulder  and  left  eye  twitching  per- 
petually, turned  a  searching  gaze  upon  the  deeply 
tanned  face  of  the  forestry  expert,  as  though  suspect- 
ing some  double  meaning  in  the  words.  Saltire  bore 
the  scrutiny  undisturbed.  Immaculate  in  white 
linens,  his  handsome  fairish  head  wearing  a  perpetu- 
ally well-groomed  look,  perhaps  by  reason  of  a  bullet 
which,  during  the  Boer  War,  had  skimmed  straight 


16  Blue  Aloes 

through  his  hair,  leaving  a  perfect  parting  in  the 
centre,  he  was  a  striking  contrast  to  the  haggard  mas- 
ter of  the  house,  who  muttered  morosely: 

"There  is  some  Latin  saying — isn't  there? — about 
people  'changing  their  skies  but  not  their  disposi- 
tions/" 

" /^disposition  is  a  different  matter,"  remarked 
Saxby  sagely,  "and  with  neuritis  it  is  a  mistake  to  let 
the  pain  get  too  near  the  heart.  I  think  you  ought  to 
see  a  doctor,  Mr.  van  Cannan,  but  East  London  is 
a  long  way  off.  Why  not  call  in  the  district  man?" 

"He  would  prescribe  a  bottle  of  pink  water  and 
charge  me  a  couple  of  pounds  for  it.  I  need  better 
treatment  than  that.  I  could  not  even  ride  this 
morning — had  to  leave  my  horse  and  walk  home. 
The  pain  was  vile." 

Saxby  looked  at  him  sympathetically. 

"Well,  try  a  couple  of  weeks'  rest  in  bed,  as  Mrs. 
van  Cannan  suggests.  You  know  that  I  can  keep 
things  going  all  right. " 

"And  Mr.  Saltire  will  continue  to  turn  the  prickly- 
pears  into  ogres  and  hags,"  said  his  wife,  with  her 
childlike  smile.  "  When  you  get  up  again,  he  will  have 
a  whole  army  of  shrivelled  monsters  ready  for  you." 

It  is  true  that  this  was  Richard  Saltire's  business 
on  the  farm — to  rid  the  land  of  that  bane  and  pest  of 
the  Karoo,  the  prickly-pear  cactus.  The  new  govern- 
mental experiment  was  the  only  one,  so  far,  that  had 
shown  any  good  results  in  getting  rid  of  the  pest.  It 
consisted  in  inoculating  each  bush  with  certain  poi- 
sons, which,  when  they  entered  the  sap  of  the  plant, 
shrivelled  and  withered  it  to  the  core,  making  its  large, 
pale,  flapping  hands  drop  off  as  though  smitten  by 
leprosy,  and  causing  the  whole  bush  to  assume  a  stag- 


Blue  Aloes  17 

gering,  menacing  attitude  that  was  immensely  start- 
ling and  grotesque.  Many  of  the  natives  were  now 
afraid  to  go  about  on  the  farm  after  dusk.  They 
said  the  prickly-pears  threatened  them,  even  ran 
after  them,  intent  on  revenge. 

Christine  had  heard  Mr.  van  Cannan  say  that  his 
father  knew  the  man  whose  grandfather  was  the  first 
Dutchman  to  introduce  the  prickly-pear  into  the  Ka- 
roo. 1 1  was  a  great  treasure  then,  being  looked  upon  as 
good  fodder  for  beast  and  ostrich  in  time  of  drought, 
and  the  boy  used  to  be  beaten  if  he  did  not  properly 
water  the  leaves  which  were  being  laboriously  pre- 
served on  the  great  trek  into  the  desert.  Unfortu- 
nately, the  preservation  had  been  so  complete  that  it 
was  now  the  ruin  of  many  a  fine  Karoo  estate,  spring- 
ing up  everywhere,  smothering  other  growths  and 
destroying,  with  its  tiny  multitudinous  thorns,  the 
stomachs  of  the  cattle,  who  love  too  much  its  watery 
leaves.  Mr.  van  Cannan  was  one  of  the  farmers  rich 
enough  to  take  drastic  steps  to  save  his  farm.  Saltire 
was  doing  it  for  him  very  thoroughly  and  efficiently. 

"How  much  longer  do  you  expect  to  be?"  asked 
van  Cannan. 

"Oh,  another  three  weeks  ought  to  finish  the  job," 
said  Saltire.  "  But,  as  you  know,  they  are  most  per- 
sistent things.  When  you  think  they  are  done  for, 
you  find  them  sprouting  green  again  below  the  wound, 
and  have  to  give  them  another  dose." 

"Three  weeks!"  muttered  van  Cannan,  with  moody 
eyes.  He  looked  to  Christine  like  a  man  suffering  with 
sickness  of  the  soul.  Everyone  supposed  the  rest-cure 
definitely  settled  on,  but,  with  the  contrariness  of  an 
ailing  child,  he  suddenly  announced  determinedly,  "  I 
shall  leave  for  East  London  this  afternoon." 


1 8  Blue  Aloes 

The  children  were  called  to  kiss  him  good-bye,  and 
they  clustered  round  him. 

"Take  care  of  them  for  me,"  he  said,  with  a  piercing 
wistfulness,  to  Christine.  "Take  care  of  my  boy." 

Then  he  turned  brusquely  to  Saxby,  making 
arrangements  for  a  mule-cart  to  be  ready  at  two 
o'clock  to  drive  him  into  Cradock,  the  nearest  large 
town,  where  he  would  have  to  spend  the  night  before 
proceeding  farther  by  rail. 

Christine  could  not  but  be  struck  by  the  words  he 
had  used,  and  mused  over  them  wonderingly  while  she 
tucked  Rita  and  Coral  under  their  mosquito-curtains. 
It  was  her  habit  to  spend  this  hour  with  Roddy  and  a 
story-book.  But  today  he  hovered  restlessly,  show- 
ing no  inclination  to  settle  down,  and  seeming  full  of 
some  suppressed  excitement.  At  last,  he  whispered  in 
her  ear: 

"  Don't  forget  where  you  said  you  would  come  with 
me — to  see  Carol  and  the  others."  Christine  won- 
dered if  old  Sophy  was  one  of  the  others,  and,  even  in 
the  noontide  heat,  she  felt  a  chill. 

"All  right,  Roddy,"  she  agreed  slowly.  "Wait  till 
I  get  a  sunshade,  though.  It  is  dreadfully  hot." 

She  shaded  him  as  much  as  herself  while  they 
threaded  their  way  through  the  shrubs  that  seemed  to 
simmer  in  the  grey-brown  heat. 

Almost  every  South  African  farm  has  its  private 
cemetery.  It  is  the  custom  to  bury  the  dead  where 
they  have  lived,  and  often  the  graveyard  is  in  the 
shadiest  corner  of  the  garden,  where  the  women  sit  to 
sew,  the  men  bring  their  pipes,  and  children  spread 
their  playthings  upon  the  flat,  roughly  hewn  tomb- 
stones. 

At  Blue  Aloes,  the  place  of  the  dead  was  hidden 


Blue  Aloes  19 

far  from  the  haunts  of  the  living,  but  the  narrow, 
uncertain  path  led  to  it  at  last — a  bare,  sun-bleached 
spot,  secluded  but  unshaded  by  a  gaudy-blossomed 
hedge  of  cactus.  A  straight,  single  line  of  graves, 
less  than  a  dozen  in  number,  lay  blistering  in  the  sun- 
shine. Some  were  marked  with  slabs  of  lime-worn 
stone,  upon  whose  faded  lettering  little  green  rock- 
lizards  were  disporting  themselves.  The  last  two  in 
the  line  had  white  marble  crosses  at  their  heads, 
each  bearing  a  name  in  black  letters,  and  a  date. 
The  preceding  one,  too,  was  fairly  new,  with  the 
earth  heaped  in  still  unbroken  lumps  upon  it,  but  it 
bore  no  distinguishing  mark  of  any  kind.  Death 
appeared  to  have  been  fairly  busy  in  recent  times 
at  Blue  Aloes.  The  date  on  the  end  grave  was  no 
older  than  six  months. 

Little  Bernard  Quentin  van  Cannan  lay  there, 
sleeping  too  soon  at  the  age  of  three  and  a  half. 
Roddy  pronounced  his  brief  but  sufficiently  eloquent 
epitaph. 

"He  was  Coral's  twin.  A  tarantula  bit  him — one 
of  the  awful  big  poisonous  ones  out  of  the  aloe  hedge." 

The  next  cross  registered  the  resting-place  of  Carol 
Quentin  van  Cannan — drowned  a  year  back,  at  the 
age  of  nine.  Christine's  sad  gaze  travelled  to  the 
third  and  unmarked  mound. 

"Is  that  Sophy's  grave?"  she  asked  softly,  for 
shrivelling  on  the  lumps  of  earth  lay  a  bunch  of  poppies 
that  she  had  seen  Roddy  gathering  the  day  before,  and 
now  remembered  wondering  where  he  had  disappeared 
to  afterward.  Roddy  did  not  answer.  He  was 
staring  before  him  with  manful  eyes  that  winked 
rapidly  but  shed  no  tears.  His  lips  were  pursed  up  as 
if  to  whistle,  yet  made  no  sound.  At  the  sight  of  him 


20  Blue  Aloes 

and  the  withered  poppies  in  the  place  where  never  a 
flower  of  memory  blossomed,  hot  tears  surged  to  the 
girl's  eyes.  It  was  wistful  to  think  of  a  child  re- 
membering when  all  others  forgot. 

"No  one  ever  comes  here  but  me,"  ne  said,  at  last. 

Christine  got  rid  of  her  tears  by  turning  her  back  on 
him  and  pressing  them  away  with  her  fingers,  for  she 
knew  that  emotion  embarrasses  and  pains  children, 
and  she  wanted  to  help  this  small,  brave  man,  not  hurt 
him. 

"  You  and  I  will  come  here  often,  Roddy.  We  will 
turn  it  into  a  garden,  and  make  it  blossom  like  the 
rose — shall  we?" 

"Yes,  yes!"  he  cried  eagerly.  "'Blossom  like  the 
rose' — that  comes  out  of  the  Bible!  I  have  heard 
daddy  read  it.  But  we  must  not  talk  about  it  to 
mamma.  It  makes  her  too  sad  to  come  here,  or  even 
talk  about  it.  Mamma  doesn't  like  sad  things. " 

Suddenly,  the  strange  quietude  of  the  place  was 
invaded  by  the  sound  of  voices.  They  were  far-off 
voices,  but  both  the  girl  and  the  child  started  as 
though  caught  in  some  forbidden  act,  and  instinctively 
took  hands.  A  moment  later  they  were  hurrying 
away  from  the  lonely  spot,  back  by  the  way  they  had 
come.  Half-way  home  they  came  upon  Richard 
Saltire  and  the  squad  of  Kafirs  who  carried  his  imple- 
ments and  liquids.  Theirs  were  the  voices  that  had 
been  heard.  Work  had  begun  on  the  territory  so 
thickly  sewn  with  prickly-pears  that  lay  between 
farm  and  cemetery. 

Saltire,  with  sleeves  rolled  up,  was  operating  with  a 
syringe  upon  the  trunk  of  a  giant  bush,  but  he  turned 
round  to  throw  a  smile  to  Roddy. 

"Hello,  Rod!" 


Blue  Aloes  21 

"Hello,  Dick!"  was  the  blithe  response.  "Gr-r-r! 
You  giving  it  to  that  old  bush?" 

"  Rather !  He's  getting  it  where  the  chicken  got  the 
ax.  Like  to  have  a  go  at  him?" 

"Oh— oh— yes!" 

Roddy  delightedly  grasped  the  syringe,  and  was 
instructed  how  to  fill  and  plunge  it  into  the  green, 
dropsical  flesh  of  the  plant.  The  Kafirs  stood  looking 
on  with  grave,  imperturbable  faces.  Christine  sat 
down  on  a  rock  and,  from  the  rosy  shadow  of  her 
parasol,  observed  the  pair.  She  was  astonished  at 
this  revelation  of  intimacy.  Saltire's  satirical  blue 
eyes  were  full  of  warm  affection  as  he  looked  at  the 
boy,  and  Roddy's  manner  toward  him  contained  a 
loving  familiarity  and  trust  she  had  never  seen  him 
exhibit  to  any  one.  It  was  interesting,  too,  to  watch 
the  man's  fine,  capable  hands  manipulating  his  instru- 
ments and  his  quick  eye  searching  each  bush  to  select 
a  vulnerable  spot  for  the  virus  of  death.  His  move- 
ments had  the  grace  and  energy  of  one  whose  every 
muscle  is  trained  by  service  and  in  perfect  condition. 
Only  men  who  hail  from  cold  climates  retain  this  char- 
acteristic in  Africa.  Those  born  in  its  disintegrating 
heats  are  usually  overtaken  in  the  early  thirties  by 
physical  weariness  or,  as  some  choose  to  call  it,  "  slack- 
ness" that  only  fine  moral  training  can  overcome. 

He  was  good  to  look  at,  too,  this  man  in  spotless 
white  clothes,  the  blueness  of  his  eyes  throwing  up 
the  clear  tan  of  his  face,  his  burnished  hair  lying  close 
to  his  head.  Christine  thought  rather  sadly  that  the 
presence  on  the  farm  of  any  one  so  sane  and  fearless- 
looking  would  have  been  a  great  comfort  to  her,  if 
only  he  had  not  been  one  of  the  people  whose  ways 
troubled  her  most. 


22  Blue  Aloes 

It  was  with  difficulty  that  she  at  last  got  Roddy 
away,  he  was  so  evidently  under  the  forestry  man's 
spell.  Almost  she  felt  that  spell  herself  when  he 
began  talking  to  her,  looking  deep  into  her  eyes  while 
he  explained  his  work;  but  suddenly  it  seemed  to  her 
that  those  blue  eyes  were  explaining  something  quite 
different,  and,  flushing  furiously,  she  made  haste  to 
take  Roddy's  hand  and  end  the  interview  by  walking 
away. 

There  was  considerable  trouble  during  the  after- 
noon with  Rita  and  Coral.  If  Christine  turned  her 
back  for  a  moment,  they  flew  out  into  the  sunshine, 
hatless,  disporting  themselves  like  baby  ostriches. 
Reproaches  were  received  with  trills  of  laughter, 
warnings  of  punishment  with  trusting,  happy  eyes. 

When,  at  last,  Christine  had  them  safely  absorbed 
in  a  table-game,  it  was  to  realize  that  Roddy  had  sud- 
denly disappeared.  Calling  Meekie  to  take  charge 
of  the  little  girls,  she  hastened,  with  beating  heart, 
in  search  of  the  boy.  Instinct  took  her  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  dam,  and  she  caught  him  up  just  as  he  had 
reached  its  brink.  He  looked  at  her  brightly,  no  sign 
of  shamefacedness  or  sulkiness  on  him,  but  would  give 
no  further  explanation  than  that  he  "only  wanted 
to  peep  in." 

"  But,  Roddy,  how  could  you  be  so  disobedient, 
dear?  And  you  remember  what  your  mother  said 
this  morning?" 

"Yes,  I  remember;  but  I  did  not  promise.  If  I 
had  promised,  I  would  not  have  gone." 

"Well,  will  you  promise  me,  darling?" 

But  at  that  he  broke  away  from  her  and  ran  toward 
the  house,  singing,  "Just  a  little  peep-in — just  a  little 
peep-in. " 


Blue  Aloes  23 

She  felt  more  than  slightly  dispirited.  There  were 
three  bad  nights  behind  her,  and  the  day  had  been 
particularly  tiring.  Though  young  and  energetic,  and 
with  an  extraordinary  sense  of  love  and  responsibility 
toward  these  naughty,  attractive  children,  she  won- 
dered, for  a  weary  moment,  whether  she  could  stand 
the  racket.  The  work  of  governessing  was  new  to  her. 
Any  work  was  new  to  her,  and  governessing  in  Africa 
is  as  different  to  governessing  in  England  (which  is  bad 
enough)  as  plowing  cultivated  land  is  to  opening  up 
virgin  soil.  But  life  had  unexpectedly  laid  the  burden 
of  work  upon  Christine  Chaine,  and  having  put  her 
hand  to  the  plow,  she  did  not  mean  to  turn  back. 
Only,  for  once,  she  was  glad  when  nightfall  brought 
the  hour  when  she  could  leave  her  charges  for  a  while 
in  someone  else's  care. 

Once  the  children  were  safely  in  bed,  it  was  Meekie's 
task  to  sit  beside  them  until  Christine  had  dined 
and  rested,  and  chose  to  come  to  bed.  Meekie  be- 
longed to  the  kraal  people,  but  she  had  white  blood  in 
her,  like  so  many  natives,  and  spoke  very  good  English. 

That  all  the  men  on  the  farm  should  turn  up  to 
dinner  that  evening  did  not  seem  to  Christine  so  much 
a  cause  for  surprise  as  for  contempt.  In  her  short 
but  not  too  happy  experience  of  life,  she  had,  like  a 
certain  great  American  philosopher,  discovered  that 
the  game  of  life  is  not  always  "played  square"  when 
there  is  a  woman  in  it.  Of  course,  it  was  compre- 
hensible that  all  men  liked  a  good  dinner,  especially 
when  it  was  not  marred  by  hymns  and  long  prayers, 
fervent  to  the  point  of  fanaticism.  Equally,  of  course, 
the  pretty  hostess,  with  a  charming  word  of  welcome 
for  everyone,  was  an  attraction  in  herself.  But, 
somehow,  it  sickened  the  clear  heart  of  Christine 


24  Blue  Aloes 

Chaine  to  see  this  jubilant  gathering  round  a  dinner- 
table  that  was  usually  deserted,  and  from  which  the 
host  had  just  departed,  a  sick  and  broken  man.  She 
thought  the  proceedings  more  worthy  of  a  lot  of 
heartless  schoolboys  delighting  in  a  master's  absence 
than  of  decent,  honest  men. 

And  whatever  she  thought  of  the  Hollanders  and 
colonials,  whose  traditions  were  unknown  to  her,  it  was 
certain  that  her  scorn  was  redoubled  for  the  one 
man  she  knew  to  be  of  her  own  class  and  land. 

Yet  there  he  sat  at  the  elbow  of  his  hostess,  calm 
and  smiling,  no  whit  removed  from  his  usual  self-con- 
tained and  arrogant  self.  Christine  gave  him  one 
long  look  that  seemed  to  turn  her  violet  eyes  black; 
then  she  looked  no  more  his  way.  She  could  not 
have  told  why  she  hated  this  action  in  him  so  bitterly. 
Perhaps  she  felt  that  he  was  worthy  of  higher  things, 
but,  if  questioned,  she  would  probably  have  laid 
it  at  the  door  of  caste  and  country.  All  that  she 
knew,  for  a  poignant  moment,  was  an  intense  longing 
to  strike  the  smile  from  his  lips  with  anything  to  hand 
— a  wine-glass,  a  bowl,  a  knife. 

Mercifully,  the  moment  passed,  and  all  that  most 
of  them  saw  was  a  young  girl  who  had  come  late  to 
dinner — a  girl  with  a  rather  radiant  skin,  purply 
black  hair  that  branched  away  from  her  face  as  though 
with  a  life  of  its  own,  and  violet  eyes  that,  after  one 
swordlike  glance  all  round,  were  hidden  under  a  line 
of  heavy  lashes.  The  black-velvet  dinner  gown  she 
wore,  simple  to  austerity,  had  just  a  faint  rim  of  tulle 
at  the  edges  against  her  skin.  Only  an  artist  or 
connoisseur  would  have  observed  the  milkiness  of 
that  skin  and  the  perfect  lines  under  the  sombre 
velvet.  Small  wonder  that  most  eyes  turned  to  the 


Blue  Aloes  25 

lady  who  tonight  took  the  place  of  ceremony  at  the 
table,  and  who,  as  always,  was  arrayed  in  the  delicate 
laces  and  pinkish  tints  that  seemed  to  call  to  notice  the 
gold  of  the  hair,  the  rose  of  her  cheek,  and  the  golden- 
brown  shadows  of  her  eyes. 

The  little  cloud  of  sadness  and  loss  that  hovered 
over  her,  yet  never  descended,  was  like  the  rain-cloud 
that  sometimes  threatens  a  June  day.  It  seemed 
everyone's  business  to  drive  that  cloud  away,  and 
everyone  but  Christine  applied  themselves  nobly  to 
the  task.  At  the  end  of  the  long  dinner,  all  were  so 
properly  employed  in  this  manner  that  apparently  no 
one  noticed  the  departure  of  the  silent,  scornful-lipped 
governess,  and  she  was  able  to  make  her  exit  without 
notice  or  remonstrance. 

For  a  little  while  she  walked  up  and  down  in  the 
garden  under  the  rays  of  a  new  and  early-retiring 
slip  of  moon.  Then,  with  a  pain  at  her  heart  that  she 
had  hoped  it  was  for  ever  out  of  the  power  of  life  to 
deal  her,  she  retired  to  the  nursery,  relieved  the  col- 
oured nurse  from  her  watch,  and  went  quietly  to  bed. 

For  fully  an  hour  afterward  she  heard  the  echo  of 
laughter  and  voices  in  the  front  veranda — sometimes 
the  chink  of  glasses.  Later,  Mrs.  van  Cannan  sang 
and  played  waltz-music  to  them  in  the  drawing-room. 
At  last  the  men  departed,  one  by  one.  Mrs.  van 
Cannan  was  heard  calling  sharply  for  her  night 
lemonade  and  someone  to  unlace  her  frock.  Next, 
the  servants  shuffled  softly  homeward  through  the 
dusk.  The  old  Cape  cook,  who  had  quarters  some- 
where near  the  kitchen,  went  the  rounds,  locking  up. 
The  clang  of  the  iron  bar  falling  into  its  bracket 
across  the  great  front  door  echoed  through  the  house. 
Then  all  was  still. 


26  Blue  Aloes 

In  the  sinister,  brooding  peace  of  the  desert  that 
ensued,  the  night  noises  presently  began  to  make 
themselves  heard. 

A  cricket  somewhere  in  the  house  set  up  a  sprightly 
cheeping.  Far,  far  away,  an  animal  wailed,  and  a 
jackal  distressfully  called  to  its  mate.  Then  some- 
thing laughed  terribly — rocking,  hollow  laughter — it 
might  have  been  a  hyena. 

Christine  Chaine  was  a  Catholic.  She  crossed 
herself  in  the  darkness  and  softly  repeated  some  of 
the  prayers  whose  cadences  and  noble  phrases  seem 
to  hold  power  to  hush  the  soul  into  peace.  She  hoped 
at  this  time  they  would  hush  her  mind  into  sleep,  but 
for  a  long  while  many  impressions  of  the  day  haunted 
her.  Sometimes  she  saw  the  twitching  shoulders 
and  tormented  gaze  of  a  sick  man,  then  the  smiling 
blond-and-pink  beauty  of  a  woman.  Sometimes  a 
pair  of  blue  eyes,  with  riddles  in  them  that  she  would 
not  read,  held  her;  then  graves — graves  in  a  long 
arid  line.  At  last  she  slept,  the  sleep  of  weariness  that 
mercifully  falls  upon  the  strong  and  healthy  like  a 
weight,  blotting  out  consciousness. 

Then — taps  on  the  shutter,  and  words: 

"  Mind  the  boy — take  care  of  the  boy  !" 

They  were  soft  taps  and  whispered  words,  but,  like 
the  torment  of  dropping  water,  they  had  their  effect 
at  last.  The  girl  sat  up  in  bed  again,  her  fingers 
pressed  to  her  temples,  her  eyes  staring,  listening, 
listening.  Yes — they  were  the  same  eternal  taps  and 
words.  With  the  dull  desperation  of  fatigue,  she  got 
out  of  bed  and  approached  the  window. 

"Who  are  you?  What  are  you?  Tell  me  what  to 
do,"  she  said  quietly. 

In  the  long  silence  that  followed,  there  was  only  one 


Blue  Aloes  27 

answer — the  subtle  odour  of  rottenness  stole  into  the 
room. 

She  never  knew  afterward  what  possessed  her  to 
take  the  course  she  did.  Probably  if  she  had  not  gone 
to  sleep  in  the  strength  and  peace  of  prayers,  and 
awakened  with  the  protection  of  them  woven  about 
her,  she  would  have  taken  no  course  at  all.  As  it  was, 
she  knew  she  had  got  to  do  something  to  solve  the 
mystery  of  this  warning.  It  did  not  occur  to  her  to 
get  out  of  the  window.  The  right  thing  seemed  to  be 
to  make  her  way  very  quietly  through  the  house,  let 
herself  out  by  the  front  door,  and  come  round  to  the 
window  where  the  warning  thing  waited.  It  would 
not  hurt  her,  she  knew.  It  was  a  hateful  Thing,  but 
that  its  intentions  were  benevolent  was  a  conclusion 
that  had  forced  itself  upon  her  soul. 

Groping  for  her  dressing-gown,  she  found  it  and  put 
it  on  without  striking  a  light.  And  though  she  carried 
a  box  of  matches  in  her  hand,  she  believed  she  would 
not  need  them,  for  the  way  was  perfectly  simple  and 
well  known  to  her — a  long  passage  that  led  to  the  din- 
ing-room, at  one  end  of  which  was  the  great,  iron- 
barred  front  door. 

Her  feet  and  hands  found  the  way  quietly,  and  she 
reached  the  front  door  without  incident,  but  when 
she  felt  for  the  great  bar  whose  strident  clanging 
in  its  bracket  had  been  a  last  signal  of  night  within 
the  house,  her  hand  encountered  nothing.  Wonder- 
ingly  she  slid  her  fingers  up  and  down  the  polished  oak. 
At  last  she  realized  that  the  bar  hung  loose;  the  door 
was  merely  on  the  latch.  Someone  beside  herself 
who  dwelt  within  the  house  had  business  without 
its  portals  that  night  and  was  still  abroad! 

For  the  first  time,  the  girl's  purpose  faltered.    A 


28  Blue  Aloes 

slow  fear  pierced  her,  and  her  feet  refused  to  take  her 
farther.  The  thought  flashed  into  her  mind  that,  if 
she  passed  the  door,  she  might  find  herself  locked  out, 
with  the  night — and  she  knew  not  what  beside. 

Even  as  she  stood  there  hesitating,  trying  to  collect 
her  courage,  a  sound — the  soft  tread  of  a  foot  on 
gravel — told  her  that  some  other  being  was  close  by. 
There  came  the  same  stealthy  tread  in  the  porch. 
Swiftly  she  shrank  back  into  the  embrasure  of  one  of 
the  long  windows,  thankful  for  the  green  blinds  against 
which  her  dark  dressing-gown  would  give  no  sign. 
With  one  full  sleeve,  she  shrouded  her  face.  She 
had  suddenly  become  terribly  aware  of  being  nothing 
but  a  slight  girl  in  a  nightgown  and  wrap,  with  bare 
feet  thrust  into  straw  slippers.  She  remembered 
stories  she  had  heard  of  struggles  in  the  darkness 
with  powerful  natives,  and  her  heart  turned  to  water. 

It  seemed  to  her  the  most  horrible  moment  of  her 
life  while  she  stood  shrinking  there  in  the  shadow, 
listening  to  the  door  open  and  close,  the  bar  being 
replaced,  the  quiet,  regular  breathing  of  that  other 
person.  Whoever  it  was,  his  movements  were  calm 
and  undisturbed,  but  Christine  could  see  nothing, 
only  a  large,  dim  outline  that  moved  sure-footedly 
across  the  room,  opened  another  door  on  the  far  side, 
closed  it,  and  was  gone. 

There  were  so  many  other  doors,  so  many  other 
passages.  All  Christine  could  be  certain  of  and  thank- 
ful for  was  that  it  was  not  her  door  and  her  passage 
that  had  swallowed  up  the  mysterious  night-walker. 
It  was  some  little  time  before  she  collected  sufficient 
fortitude  to  creep  back  whence  she  had  come,  her 
plan  unfulfilled,  her  courage  melted.  She  was  bitterly 
ashamed,  yet  felt  as  if  she  had  escaped  from  some 


Blue  Aloes  29 

great  evil.  Once  in  the  nursery,  she  locked  the  door, 
lighted  a  candle,  and,  after  she  had  looked  to  ascertain 
that  the  children  were  sleeping  soundly,  she  opened 
her  dressing-case  and  took  out  a  little  box  of  cachets 
that  had  been  prescribed  for  her  a  year  before  when 
bitter  trouble  had  stolen  sleep  for  many  a  night.  She 
felt,  and  with  some  reason,  that  this  was  an  occasion 
when  it  would  not  be  too  cowardly  to  resort  to  arti- 
ficial means  of  restoring  her  nerves  by  sleep.  For 
though  fright  and  surprise  had  bereft  her,  for  the 
time  being,  of  her  nerve,  her  firm  spirit  was  neither 
beaten  nor  cowed.  She  meant  to  see  this  thing 
through,  and  her  last  waking  thought  was  a  murmured 
prayer  for  help  to  steel  her  heart  against  terrors  that 
walked  by  night,  and  to  resist  to  the  utmost  any  men- 
ace of  evil  that  should  approach  the  little  children  in 
her  charge. 


PART  II 

THERE  followed  some  tranquil  days  of  which  noth- 
ing broke  the  peaceful  monotony.  The  children  were 
extraordinarily  tractable,  perhaps  because  Mrs.  van 
Cannan  seemed  too  preoccupied  to  lay  any  injunc- 
tions upon  them.  True,  Roddy  made  one  of  his 
mysterious  disappearances,  but  it  was  not  long  before 
Christine,  hard  on  his  heels,  discovered  him  emerging 
from  an  outhouse,  where  she  later  assured  herself  that 
he  could  have  come  to  no  great  harm,  for  it  was  merely 
a  big  barn  stacked  with  grain  and  forage,  and  a  number 
of  old  packing  cases.  Nothing  there  to  account  for 
the  expression  he  wore — that  same  suggestion  of  tears 
fiercely  restrained  which  she  had  noticed  when  they 
were  looking  at  the  unmarked  grave  in  the  cemetery. 
It  wrung  her  heart  to  see  his  young  mouth  pursed  up 
to  whistle  a  tune  that  would  not  come,  the  look  of 
longing  in  eyes  where  only  happiness  and  the  divine 
contentment  of  childhood  should  dwell;  but  the  boy 
volunteered  no  information,  and  she  did  not  press  him. 
She  wanted  his  confidence,  not  to  have  him  regard  her 
as  a  sort  of  jailer. 

Every  day,  in  the  cool  of  the  early  morning,  while 
the  others  were  still  sleeping,  he  and  she  visited  the 
graveyard,  starting  the  good  work  of  making  it  blos- 
som like  the  rose,  as  Christine  had  promised.  They 
planted  lilies  and  geraniums  over  the  little  brothers, 

30 


Blue  Aloes  31 

and  edged  the  lonely,  unmarked  grave  with  a  species 
of  curly-leaved  box  common  to  that  part  of  the  coun- 
try and  which  grew  rapidly.  It  was  Roddy's  fancy, 
too,  to  cover  this  grave  with  portulaca — a  little  plant 
bearing  starry  flowers  of  vivid  hues  that  live  for  a  day 
only.  He  chose  plants  that  bore  only  scarlet  and 
golden  blossoms. 

"She  liked  those  two  colours, "  he  told  Christine, 
smiling.  "  She  said  that  when  we  were  babies  we  were 
all  like  that — very  red,  with  yellowy  golden  hair." 

Christine,  looking  at  the  bright  head  and  the  fresh 
cheeks  so  rare  in  a  South  African  child,  readily  under- 
stood. But  she  could  not  help  wondering,  as  before, 
at  the  loyal  little  heart  that  remembered  so  well  the 
words  and  fancies  of  a  dead  woman — when  all  others 
forgot ! 

Nearly  always  on  returning  from  these  morning 
excursions  they  met  Saltire,  rapidly  wreaking  de- 
struction upon  the  district.  Already,  scores  of  the 
prickly-pears  through  which  they  must  wend  their 
way  were  assuming  the  staggering  attitude  character- 
istic of  them  as  the  sap  dried  and  they  died  of  their 
wounds.  Sometimes,  one  side  of  a  bush  would  shrivel 
first,  causing  it  to  double  up  like  a  creature  agonizing. 
Some  crouched  like  strange  beasts  watching  to  spring. 
Others  thrust  themselves  ominously  forward  with 
projected  arms,  as  if  ready  to  grapple.  Some  brand- 
ished their  flat  leaves  as  the  painter  Wiertz,  in  his 
famous  picture  of  Napoleon  in  Hell,  made  wives  and 
mothers  brandish  their  menacing  fists  at  the  man  who 
had  robbed  them  of  their  loved  ones.  All  wore  a  look 
that  suggested  both  agony  and  revenge.  Christine 
understood,  at  last,  why  the  Kafirs  hated  to  go  about 
the  land  after  dark,  averring  that  the  afflicted  bushes 


32  Blue  Aloes 

threatened  and  chased  them.  She  began  herself  to 
experience  an  inexplicable  feeling  of  relief,  as  though 
at  the  overcoming  of  an  enemy,  when  a  great  spire  of 
smoke  betokened  the  final  uprooting  and  burning  of  a 
clump  of  bush.  For  fire  was  the  ultimate  element 
used  to  transform  the  pest  from  a  malignant  into  a 
beneficent  factor,  and,  as  aromatic  ash,  it  became  of 
service  to  the  land  it  had  ruined  so  long.  Almost,  the 
process  seemed  an  exposition  of  Job's  words:  "When 
thou  hast  tried  me  with  fire,  I  shall  come  forth  as 
gold." 

It  was  a  curious  thing  how  the  "personality"  of  the 
bushes  appeared  to  affect  them  all.  Saltire  at  his  work 
gave  the  impression  of  a  fighter  concentrating  on  the 
defeat  of  an  enemy.  Roddy  would  dance  for  joy 
before  each  staggering  bush.  The  impassivity  of  the 
natives  departed  from  them  when  they  stood  about  the 
funeral  pyres,  and  clapping  of  hands  and  warlike 
chanting  went  heavenward  with  the  smoke.  Christine 
and  Roddy  often  lingered  to  watch  these  rejoicings; 
indeed,  it  was  impossible  at  any  time  to  get  the  boy 
past  Saltire  and  his  gang  without  a  halt.  The  English 
girl,  while  standing  somewhat  aloof,  would  neverthe- 
less not  conceal  from  herself  the  interest  she  felt  in 
the  forestry  man's  remarks,  not  only  on  the  common 
enemy,  but  his  work  in  general. 

"They  have  a  great  will  to  live,  Roddy — much 
stronger  than  you  and  I,  because  we  dissipate  our  will 
in  so  many  directions.  I've  met  this  determination 
before  in  growing  things,  though.  There  are  plants  in 
the  African  jungle  that  you  have  to  track  and  trail 
like  wild  beasts  and  do  murder  upon  before  they  will 
die.  And  this  old  prickly-pear  is  of  the  same  family. 
If  a  bit  of  leaf  can  break  off  and  fly  past  you,  it  hides 


Blue  Aloes  33 

itself  behind  a  stone,  hastily  puts  roots  into  the  ground, 
and  grows  into  a  bush  before  you  can  say  'Jack 
Robinson. '  Your  farm  will  be  a  splendid  place  when 
we've  got  rid  of  all  these  and  replaced  them  with  the 
spineless  plant.  Prickly-pear  without  spines  is  a 
perfect  food  for  cattle  and  ostriches  in  this  climate." 

Thus  he  talked  to  Roddy,  as  if  the  latter  were  al- 
ready a  man  and  in  possession  of  his  heritage — the 
wide  lands  of  Blue  Aloes;  but  always  while  he  talked, 
he  looked  at  and  considered  the  girl  who  stood  aloof, 
wearing  her  air  of  world-weariness  like  a  veil  over  the 
youth  and  bloom  of  her. 

And  she,  on  her  side,  was  considering  and  reading 
him,  too.  She  liked  him  better,  because,  since  that 
first  night  of  Mr.  van  Cannan's  departure,  he  had 
absented  himself  from  the  dinner-table.  That  showed 
some  glimmer  of  grace  in  him.  Still,  there  was  far 
too  much  arrogance  in  his  manner,  she  thought,  and 
decided  that  he  had  probably  been  spoiled  by  too 
facile  women.  Nothing  blunts  the  fine  spiritual  side 
of  a  man's  character  so  rapidly  as  association  with 
women  of  low  ideals.  The  romance  of  her  own  life 
had  been  split  upon  that  rock.  She  had  known  what 
it  was  to  stand  by  and  see  the  man  she  loved  with 
all  the  pure  idealism  of  youth  wrecked  by  the  cheap 
wiles  of  a  high-born  woman  with  a  second-rate  soul. 
Perhaps  her  misfortune  had  sharpened  her  vision  for 
this  defect  in  men.  Certainly,  it  had  tainted  her  out- 
look with  disdain.  She  sometimes  felt,  as  Pater  wrote 
of  Mono.  Lisa,  that  "  she  had  looked  upon  all  the  world, 
and  her  eyelids  were  a  little  weary."  At  any  rate, 
when  she  found  Dick  Saltire's  blue  eyes  looking  into 
hers  so  straightly  and  significantly  that  it  almost 
seemed  as  if  an  arrow  came  glancing  from  him  to  her, 


34  Blue  Aloes 

she  merely  told  herself,  with  an  inward  smiling  bitter- 
ness, that  no  doubt  the  same  phenomenon  occurred 
when  he  spoke  to  Mrs.  van  Cannan. 

Some  days  after  the  departure  of  the  master  of  the 
farm  for  the  coast,  the  post-bag  arrived  from  Cradock, 
and,  as  Mrs.  van  Cannan  was  still  sleeping,  it  fell  to 
Christine,  as  it  had  sometimes  done  before,  to  dis- 
tribute the  mail.  Among  her  own  large  batch  of  home 
letters  it  was  so  unusual  to  find  a  South  African  one 
that  she  opened  it  immediately,  and  was  astonished 
to  discover  it  to  be  from  Bernard  van  Cannan.  It  had 
been  written  from  Cradock  on  the  evening  of  the  day 
he  left  the  farm. 

"  DEAR  Miss  CHAINE: 

"  I  want  once  more  to  commend  to  you  the  very 
special  care  of  my  children  while  I  am  away.  My 
wife,  not  being  very  strong,  is  unable  to  see  as  much  of 
them  as  she  would  wish,  and  I  do  not  like  her  to  be 
worried.  But  there  are  many  dangers  on  a  farm,  and 
I  have  already,  by  most  unhappy  chance,  lost  two 
young  sons.  Both  deaths  occurred  during  absences  of 
mine  and  were  the  result  of  accident,  though,  at  the 
time,  they  were  surrounded  by  every  loving  care  and 
security.  Perhaps,  therefore,  you  will  understand  the 
kind  of  superstitious  apprehension  I  feel  about  Roder- 
ick, who  is  the  last  and  only  one  left  to  come  after 
me  in  the  old  place.  He  has  always  needed  special 
looking-after,  being  extremely  curious  and  implusive 
while,  at  the  same  time,  nervous  and  reticent. 

"Perhaps  it  is  only  my  illness  that  makes  me  full  of 
fears,  but  /  can  assure  you  that  bad  it  not  been  for  the 
great  confidence  you  bave  inspired  in  me  from  tbe  first, 
I  should  not  have  left  the  farm,  so  anxious  do  I  con- 


Blue  Aloes  35 

tinually  feel  about  the  welfare  of  my  third  and  last 
son.  However,  I  trust  in  God  I  shall  be  back  soon, 
better  in  health,  to  find  that  all  is  well. 

"  Do  not  worry  my  dear  wife  with  this  matter.  She 
is  of  a  disposition  that  cannot  cope  with  sorrow  and 
trouble,  and  I  would  not  for  the  world  cloud  her  happy 
outlook  with  my  morbid  fancies.  Keep  my  confidence, 
and  remember  that  I  rely  on  you  with  all  my  heart 
to  guard  my  little  ones. 

"  Sincerely  yours, 
"BERNARD  VAN  CANNAN. 

"  P.  S. — I  append,my  East  London  address,  and  if 
I  am  detained  for  any  time,  I  shall  be  glad  to  hear 
from  you." 

A  vision  of  the  gloomy-eyed  man,  twitching  with 
pain  and  nerves,  rose  up  before  her  eyes  as  she  folded 
the  letter,  and  she  resolved  to  write  to  him  at  once, 
allaying  his  fears  as  much  as  possible  by  an  assurance 
of  her  devotion.  She  was  sitting  in  the  summer- 
house  at  the  time,  the  children  beside  her,  bent  over 
their  morning  lessons.  Through  the  creeper-framed 
doorway,  she  could  see  the  walls  and  veranda  of  the 
old  farm,  glaring  white  in  the  fierce  sunlight,  but  with 
every  line  expressing  such  harmony  as  only  the  old 
Dutch  architects  seem  to  have  had  the  secret  of 
putting  into  the  building  of  South  African  homesteads. 
Before  the  front  door  stood  three  gnarled  oaks,  which 
yet  bore  the  marks  of  chains  used  by  the  early  van 
Cannans  to  fasten  up  the  cattle  at  night,  for  fear  of  the 
hostile  Kafirs  who  at  set  of  sun  came  creeping  over  the 
kopjes.  Scores  of  fierce,  man-eating  dogs  were  kept 
to  deal  with  the  marauders,  and  there  were  still  loop- 


36  Blue  Aloes 

holes  in  the  white  walls  from  which  those  within  had 
watched  and  defended. 

But  those  days  were  long  past.  Nothing  now  in  the 
gracious  building,  with  its  shady  stoeps  and  high,  red 
roof,  toned  melodiously  by  age,  to  betoken  battle, 
murder,  and  sudden  death.  It  seemed  strange  that 
sinister  forebodings  should  attach  themselves  in  any 
mind  to  such  harmony  of  form  and  colour.  Yet 
Christine  held  in  her  hand  the  very  proof  of  such 
thoughts,  and,  what  was  more,  knew  herself  to  be 
obsessed  by  them  when  darkness  took  the  land.  For 
a  moment  even  now,  looking  out  at  the  brilliant  sun- 
shine, she  was  conscious  of  a  falter  in  her  soul,  a 
moment  of  horrible  loneliness,  a  groping-out  for  some 
human  being  stronger  than  herself  of  whom  to  take 
counsel.  A  thought  of  Saltire  flashed  across  her.  He 
looked  strong  and  sane,  kind  and  chivalrous.  But 
could  he  be  trusted?  Had  she  not  already  learned  in 
the  bitter  school  of  life  that  "  Ye  have  no  friend  but 
resolution!" 

A  shadow  fell  across  the  doorway.  It  was  Saxby, 
the  manager.  He  gave  her  his  pleasant,  melancholy 
smile. 

"  I  wonder  if  Mrs.  van  Cannan  is  up  yet,"  he  said,  in 
his  full,  rich  voice.  "  There  are  one  or  two  farm  mat- 
ters I  want  to  consult  her  about." 

Christine  looked  at  the  watch  on  her  wrist  and  saw 
that  it  was  past  eleven. 

"Oh,  I  should  think  so,  Mr.  Saxby.  The  closing  of 
all  the  shutters  is  usually  a  sign  that  she  is  up  and 
about." 

It  is,  in  fact,  a  practice  in  all  Karoo  houses  to  close 
every  window  and  shutter  at  about  ten  o'clock  each 
morning,  not  throwing  them  open  again  until  sunset. 


Blue  Aloes  37 

This  keeps  the  interiors  extraordinarily  cool,  and,  as 
the  walls  are  usually  whitewashed,  there  is  plenty  of 
light. 

"  I  expect  I  shall  find  her  in  the  drawing-room," 
Saxby  remarked,  and  passed  on.  Christine  saw  him 
leave  again  about  half  an  hour  later.  Then  the  sound 
of  waltz-music  within  the  closed  house  told  that  Mrs. 
van  Cannan  was  beguiling  away  the  rest  of  the  long, 
hot  morning  in  a  favourite  fashion.  At  noon,  the  heat, 
as  usual,  made  the  summer-house  untenable,  and  its 
occupants  were  driven  indoors. 

Lunch  introduced  the  only  excitement  the  quiet 
monotony  of  the  day  ever  offered,  when  the  men  came 
filing  into  the  soft  gloom  of  the  dining-room,  bringing 
with  them  a  suggestion  of  a  world  of  work  that  still 
went  on  its  way,  come  rain,  come  shine.  All  of  them 
took  advantage  of  the  custom  of  the  climate  to  appear 
coatless.  Indeed,  the  fashion  of  shirts  was  sometimes 
so  decolletee  as  to  be  slightly  embarrassing  to  English 
eyes.  Only  Saltire  paid  the  company  the  compliment 
of  unrolling  his  sleeves,  buttoning  the  top  button  of 
his  shirt,  and  assuming  a  tie  for  the  occasion. 

Everyone  seemed  of  opinion  that  the  summer  rains 
were  brewing  and  that  was  the  reason  of  the  insuffer- 
able heat. 

"We'll  have  a  couple  of  days  of  this,"  prophesied 
Andrew  McNeil,  "then  down  it  will  come  with  a 
vengeance." 

"The  land  wants  it,  of  course,  but  it  will  be  a  con- 
founded nuisance  to  me,"  remarked  the  forestry  expert. 

"Oh,  Mr.  Saltire,  you  are  insatiable  in  your  work 
of  murder,"  smiled  his  hostess.  "Are  you  as  merci- 
less in  all  your  dealings?"  She  looked  at  him  with 
provoking  eyes.  Christine  hardened  herself  to  hear 


38  Blue  Aloes 

an  answer  in  the  same  vein,  but  was  as  agreeably  re- 
lieved as  surprised. 

"  I  want  to  get  the  work  done,"  said  Saltire  briefly. 

"  I  never  knew  any  one  so  anxious  to  leave  us  be- 
fore," grumbled  Mrs.  van  Cannan  prettily.  "You 
must  be  terribly  bored  with  us  all." 

"Never  less  in  my  life." 

The  answer  was  so  impersonal  as  to  be  almost  a  sign 
of  boredom  in  itself,  and  Mrs.  van  Cannan,  little 
accustomed  to  have  her  charming  advances  met  in 
such  fashion,  turned  away  with  a  pucker  on  her  brow 
to  a  more  grateful  audience.  At  the  same  moment, 
an  irresistible  impulse  drew  Christine's  glance  to 
Saltire  in  time  to  receive  one  of  those  straight,  signifi- 
cant looks  that  indescribably  disturbed  her.  Noth- 
ing there  of  the  impersonality  his  words  had  betrayed ! 
It  was  a  clear  message  from  a  man  to  a  woman — one 
of  those  messages  that  only  very  strong-willed  people 
who  know  what  they  want  have  the  frankness,  per- 
haps the  boldness,  to  send.  Even  an  indifferent 
woman  would  have  been  stirred  to  a  knowledge  of 
dangerous  sweetness,  and  she  knew  that  she  had  never 
been  quite  indifferent  to  the  personal  magnetism  of 
Dick  Saltire.  As  it  was,  she  was  shaken  to  the  very 
soul  of  her.  For  a  moment,  she  had  the  curious  illu- 
sion that  she  had  never  lived  before,  never  had  been 
happy  or  unhappy,  was  safe  at  last  in  some  sure, 
lovely  harbour  from  all  the  hurts  of  the  world.  It 
was  strange  in  the  midst  of  everyday  happenings, 
with  the  talk  and  clatter  of  a  meal  going  on,  to  be 
swept  overwhelmingly  away  like  that  to  a  far  place 
where  only  two  people  dwelt — she  and  the  man  who 
looked  at  her.  And  before  the  illusion  was  past, 
she  had  returned  a  message  to  him.  She  did  not 


Blue  Aloes  39 

know  what  was  in  her  look,  but  she  knew  what  was 
in  her  heart. 

Almost  immediately  it  was  time  to  take  the  children 
and  go.  Mrs.  van  Cannan  delayed  them  for  a  mo- 
ment, giving  some  directions  for  the  afternoon.  If 
Christine  could  have  seen  herself  with  the  children 
clinging  to  her,  she  would  have  been  surprised  that 
she  could  appear  so  beautiful.  Her  grace  of  carriage 
and  well-bred  face  had  always  been  remarkable,  but 
gone  were  disdain  and  weariness  from  her.  She  passed 
out  of  the  room  without  looking  again  at  Dick  Saltire, 
though  he  rose,  as  always,  to  open  the  door  for  her. 

An  afternoon  of  such  brazen  heat  followed  that  it 
was  well  to  be  within  the  shelter  of  the  shuttered  house. 
But  outside,  in  the  turmoil  of  dust  and  glare,  the  work 
of  the  farm  went  on  as  usual.  Christine  pictured 
Saltire  at  his  implacable  task,  serene  in  spite  of  dust 
and  blaze,  with  the  quality  of  resolution  in  his  every 
movement  that  characterized  him,  the  quality  he  had 
power  to  put  into  his  eyes  and  throw  across  a  room  to 
her.  The  remembrance  of  his  glance  sent  her  pale, 
even  now  in  the  quiet  house.  Only  a  strong  man,  sure 
of  himself  and  with  the  courage  of  his  wishes,  would 
dare  put  such  a  message  into  his  eyes,  would  dare  call 
boldly  and  silently  to  a  woman  that  she  was  his  raison 
d'etre,  that,  because  of  her,  the  dulness  and  monotony 
of  life  had  never  bored  him  less,  that  he  had  found  her, 
that  she  must  take  of  and  give  to  him.  She  knew  now 
that  he  had  been  telling  her  these  things  ever  since 
they  had  met,  but  that  she  had  turned  from  the  know- 
ledge, until,  at  last,  in  an  unguarded  moment,  it  had 
reached  and  overwhelmed  her,  flooding  her  soul  with 
passionate  joy,  yet  filling  her  with  a  peace  and  security 
she  had  never  known,  either  in  the  old  farmhouse  or 


40  Blue  Aloes 

since  the  long-ago  day  when  all  her  brave  castles  of 
youth  and  love  had  crashed  down  into  the  dust.  Gone 
now  was  unbelief,  and  disdain,  and  fear  of  terror  that 
stalked  by  night;  a  rock  was  at  her  back,  there  was  a 
hand  to  hold  in  the  blackest  darkness.  Never  any 
more  need  she  feel  fear  and  spiritual  loneliness. 
Withal,  there  was  the  passionate  joy  of  adventure,  of 
exploration  in  sweet,  unknown  lands  of  the  heart,  the 
launching  of  a  boat  upon  a  sea  of  dreams.  Life  sang 
to  Christine  Chaine  like  a  nightingale  under  the  stars. 

How  tenderly  and  patiently  she  beguiled  the  heat- 
weary  children  throughout  that  long  afternoon! 
There  was  no  feeling  of  haste  upon  her.  She  knew 
that  sweetness  was  travelling  her  way,  that  "what  is 
for  thee,  gravitates  toward  thee,"  and  is  vain  to  seek 
before  the  appointed  hour.  It  might  come  as  even- 
song to  a  seemingly  endless  day,  or  dawn  following  a 
fearsome  night.  But  it  was  coming.  That  was  all 
that  mattered! 

The  directions  Mrs.  van  Cannan  had  given,  as  they 
left  the  luncheon,  were  to  the  effect  that,  when  the 
siesta  hour  was  over,  the  children  were  to  have  pos- 
session of  the  drawing-room  until  it  was  cool  enough 
for  them  to  go  for  their  accustomed  walk.  This  plan 
was  to  continue  as  long  as  the  hot  weather  lasted. 

"  I  think  it  is  not  very  healthy  for  any  of  you, "  she 
said  amiably,  "  to  stick  all  day  in  a  room  you  have  to 
sleep  in  at  night." 

Christine  could  not  help  being  surprised  at  her 
giving  up  the  coolest  and  quietest  room  in  the  house, 
and  one  that  had  hitherto  been  forbidden  ground  to 
the  children.  However,  here  they  were,  installed 
among  gaily  cretonned  furniture,  the  little  girls  dash- 
ing about  like  squirrels  in  a  strange  cage,  Roddy, 


Blue  Aloes      .  41 

apparently  more  at  home,  prowling  softly  around, 
examining  things  with  a  reverent  yet  familiar  air. 

"  I  remember  when  we  used  to  come  here  every 
day,"  said  Rita  suddenly,  and  stood  stock-still  with 
concentrated  eyes,  like  one  trying  to  catch  the  mem- 
ory of  a  dream.  "When  was  it,  Roddy?" 

He  looked  at  her  steadily. 

"When  our  old  nannie  was  here." 

Rita  fixed  her  blue  eyes  on  his. 

"There  was  someone  else  here,  too,"  she  insisted. 

"Sophy  always  brought  us  here,"  he  repeated 
mechanically. 

"  I  remember  old  Sophy,"  murmured  Rita  thought- 
fully. "She  cried  dreadfully  when  she  went  away. 
She  was  not  allowed  to  kiss  us  because  she  had  turned 
all  silver  colour."  She  trilled  into  gay  laughter. 
"Mamma  told  me  that  it  might  have  turned  us  all 
silver,  too." 

"  I  kissed  her  before  she  went,  anyway!"  burst  from 
Roddy  fiercely.  "And  I  would  not  have  cared  if  it 
bad  turned  me  to  silver." 

Christine  glanced  wonderingly  at  him,  astonished  at 
this  new  theme  of  silver. 

"  But  if  she  went  away,  how  is  it  that  she  is  buried 
here,  Roddy?" 

"She  isn't." 

"But  the  grave  we  covered  with  portulaca — " 
She  stopped  abruptly,  for  the  boy's  face  had  assumed 
the  look  she  could  not  bear — the  look  of  enduring  that 
only  those  hardened  to  life  should  know.  "  Come  and 
listen  to  this  story  of  a  magic  carpet  on  which  two 
children  were  carried  over  strange  lands  and  cities," 
she  said  gently,  and  drew  them  all  round  her,  with  an 
arm  through  Roddy's. 


42  Blue  Aloes 

The  windows  and  shutters  were  thrown  open  at 
sunset,  and  the  children  had  their  tea  in  the  dining- 
room.  Afterward,  they  went  for  a  long  walk  across 
the  sands  toward  the  kopjes,  which  had  receded  into 
distance  again  and  in  the  west  were  turning  purple 
with  mauve  tops.  But  the  rest  of  the  sky  was  col- 
oured a  threatening  greenish  bronze,  with  monstrous- 
shaped  clouds  sprawled  across  it;  and  the  air,  though 
sunless,  was  still  sand-laden  and  suffocating,  with  the 
promise  of  storm. 

It  would  have  been  easy  for  Christine  to  take  the 
children  toward  the  vicinity  in  which  Saltire  was 
occupied  and  where  he  would  now  be  putting  up  his 
instruments  and  dismissing  his  workers  for  the  night, 
but  some  instinct  half  modest,  half  self-sacrificing 
made  her  postpone  the  happiness  of  seeing  him  again, 
and  guided  her  feet  in  an  opposite  direction.  She 
was  certain  that,  though  he  had  refrained  from  dining 
at  the  farm  except  for  the  one  night  of  Mr.  van  Can- 
nan's  departure,  she  would  see  him  there  that  evening, 
and  she  dressed  with  special  care  and  joy  in  the  beauty 
of  her  hair,  her  tinted,  curving  face,  and  the  subtle 
glamour  that  she  knew  she  wore  as  the  gift  of  happi- 
ness. 

"How  sweet  it  is  to  be  young  and  desirable — and 
desired  by  the  one  man  in  the  world!"  was  the  half- 
formed  thought  in  her  mind  as  she  combed  her  soft, 
cloudy  black  hair  high  above  her  face  and  fixed  it  with 
a  tall  amber  comb.  But  she  would  not  converse  too 
clearly  with  her  heart.  Enough  that  she  had  heard 
it  singing  in  her  breast  as  she  had  never  thought  to 
hear  it  sing  again.  She  was  glad  of  the  excuse  of  the 
heavy  heat  to  discard  her  usual  black  gown  and  be 
seen  in  a  colour  that  she  knew  belonged  to  her  by  right 


Blue  Aloes  43 

of  her  black  hair  and  violet  eyes — a  deep  primrose- 
yellow  of  soft,  transparent  muslin. 

Saltire  was  late  for  dinner,  but  he  came,  as  she  had 
known  he  would,  taking  his  usual  place  next  to  Mrs. 
van  Cannan  and  almost  opposite  Christine,  who,  for 
the  evening  meal,  was  always  expected  to  sit  at  the 
main  body  of  the  table.  She  was  busy  at  the  moment 
hearing  from  Mr.  McNeil  all  about  the  process  of 
ostrich-feather  plucking  which  was  to  begin  next  day, 
but  she  did  not  miss  a  word  of  the  late  comer's  apolo- 
gies or  the  merry  raillery  with  which  they  were  met 
by  his  hostess.  The  latter,  as-  usual,  gathered  unto 
herself  every  remark  uttered  at  the  table,  and  the 
attentions  of  every  man,  though  she  never  bothered 
much  about  old  Andrew  McNeil.  But  if  she  had 
the  lip-service,  Christine  was  very  well  aware  to 
whom  was  accorded,  that  night,  the  service  of  the 
eyes. 

Every  man  there  had  become  aware  of  the  youth 
and  beauty  which,  till  that  day,  she  had  worn  as  if 
veiled,  and  they  were  paying  the  tribute  that  men  will 
proffer  until  the  end  of  time  to  those  two  gifts  of  the 
gods.  She  knew  it  without  vanity,  but  also  without 
embarrassment,  for  she  had  tasted  triumph  before  in 
a  world  more  difficult  to  please  than  this,  surrounded 
by  opponents  worthier  of  her  steel  than  Isabel  van 
Cannan.  The  little  triumph  only  pleased  her  in  that 
she  could  offer  it  as  a  gift  to  the  man  she  loved.  For 
here  is  another  eternal  truth,  that  all  men  are  one  in 
pride  of  possession  of  that  which  excites  envy  and 
admiration  in  other  men.  All  women  know  this  with 
a  gladness  that  is  salted  by  sorrow. 

Saltire's  eyes  were  the  only  ones  she  could  not  meet 
with  serenity.  She  felt  his  glance  on  her  often,  but 


44  Blue  Aloes 

always  when  she  tried  to  lift  hers  to  meet  it,  her  lids 
seemed  weighted  by  little  heavy  pebbles. 

She  meant  to  overcome  this  weakness,  though,  and 
look  at  him  even  as  she  had  answered  at  noon;  but, 
in  the  middle  of  dinner,  while  she  yet  strove  against  the 
physical  inability,  her  resolution  was  disturbed  by  a 
strange  occurrence.  A  wild  scream  of  fear  and  horror 
came  ringing  from  the  nursery.  Without  a  thought 
for  anything  but  that  it  was  Roddy's  voice,  Christine 
sprang  from  the  table.  Down  the  long  passage  and 
into  the  nursery  she  ran,  and,  almost  bursting  into  the 
room,  caught  the  boy  in  her  arms.  He  was  not 
screaming  now,  but  white  as  death  and  staring  with 
fearful  eyes  at  the  bed,  on  which  the  bedclothes  were 
pulled  back,  with  Meekie  peering  over  it.  The  two 
little  girls,  round-eyed  and  frightened,  were  sitting  up 
in  their  cots.  For  a  moment,  Roddy  stayed  rigid  in 
her  arms;  then  he  hid  his  face  against  her  arm  and 
broke  into  convulsive  sobs. 

"It's  a  big  spider — all  red  and  black — like  the  one 
that  bit  Bernard!" 

And,  in  fact,  from  where  she  stood,  Christine  could 
see  the  monstrous  thing,  with  its  black,  furry  claws, 
protruding  eyes,  and  red-blotched  body,  still  crouch- 
ing there  in  a  little  hollow  at  the  end  of  the  bed.  Only, 
the  person  leaning  over  examining  it  now  was  not 
Meekie  but  Saltire,  who  had  reached  the  nursery 
almost  on  her  heels. 

"  I  put  my  foot  against  it  and  touched  its  beastly 
fur!"  cried  Roddy,  and  suddenly  began  to  scream 
again. 

"Roddy!  How  dare  you  make  that  abominable 
noise?" 

Mrs.  van  Cannan's  voice  fell  like  a  jet  of  ice-cold 


Blue  Aloes  45 

water  into  the  room.  Behind  her  in  the  doorway 
loomed  the  tall  figure  of  Saxby,  the  manager,  with 
McNeil  and  the  others.  Christine's  warm  heart 
would  never  have  suggested  such  a  method  of  quieting 
the  boy,  but  it  had  its  points.  Roddy,  though  still 
shaking  and  ashen,  stood  up  straight  and  looked  at  his 
mother. 

"All  about  a  silly  spider!"  continued  the  latter,  with 
cutting  scorn.  "I  am  ashamed  of  you!  I  thought 
you  were  brave,  like  your  father." 

That  flushed  Roddy  to  his  brows. 

"It  has  fur — red  fur,"  he  stammered. 

"  You  deserve  a  whipping  for  your  cowardice, "  said 
Mrs.  van  Cannan  curtly,  and  walked  over  to  the  bed. 
"The  thing  is  half  dead,  and  quite  harmless,"  she 
said. 

"Half  dead  or  half  drunk,"  McNeil  jocosely  sug- 
gested. "  I  never  saw  a  tarantula  so  quiet  as  that 
before. " 

"The  question  is  how  long  would  it  have  stayed  in 
that  condition?"  said  Saltire  significantly.  "For  you 
are  mistaken  about  its  harmlessness,  Mrs.  van  Can- 
nan.  It  is  one  of  the  most  poisonous  and  ferocious  of 
its  tribe." 

They  had  got  the  strangely  sluggish  beast  off  the 
bed  by  knocking  it  with  a  stick  into  an  old  shoe,  and 
were  removing  it.  Christine  only  vaguely  heard  the 
remarks,  for  Roddy  hid  his  eyes  while  it  was  being 
carried  out,  and  was  trembling  violently  against  her. 
It  seemed  amazing  to  her  that  Mrs.  van  Cannan  did 
not  realize  that  there  was  more  than  mere  cowardice 
in  his  behaviour.  The  trouble  was  so  plainly  psycho- 
logical— the  memory  of  the  loss  of  a  loved  little  brother 
subtly  interwoven  with  horror  of  that  particular 


46  Blue  Aloes 

species  of  venomous  insect.  Christine  herself  had  a 
greater  hatred  of  spiders  than  of  any  creeping  things, 
and  well  understood  the  child's  panic  of  disgust  and 
fear.  It  filled  her  with  indignation  to  hear  Mrs.  van 
Cannan  turn  once  more  and  lash  the  boy  with  a 
phrase  before  she  swept  from  the  room. 

"Miserable  little  coward!" 

In  a  moment,  the  girl  was  kneeling  on  the  floor 
beside  the  unhappy  child,  holding  him  tight,  whisper- 
ing words  of  love  and  comfort. 

"No,  no,  darling;  it  is  only  that  she  does  not  under- 
stand! We  will  explain  to  her — I  will  tell  her  later 
why  you  hated  it  so.  Wait  till  your  daddy  comes  back. 
I  am  sure  he  will  understand." 

So  she  strove  to  comfort  him,  while  Meekie  coaxed 
the  little  girls  back  to  the  horizontal  attitude  under 
their  sheets. 

"  Don't  make  me  go  back  into  that  bed,"  whispered 
Roddy  fearfully. 

"No;  of  course  not.  Don't  worry;  just  trust  me, 
darling!"  She  turned  to  Meekie.  "I  will  stay  with 
them  now,  Meekie.  You  may  go." 

"But  has  the  missy  had  her  dinner?"  asked  the 
Cape  woman  politely. 

"  I  have  had  all  I  want,  thank  you,  Meekie." 

The  thought  of  going  back  to  the  dinner-table — to 
eat  and  join  in  the  talk  and  laughter  while  this  small 
boy  whom  she  loved  stayed  alone  with  his  wretched- 
ness revolted  her.  Perhaps  later,  when  he  slept,  she 
might  slip  out  into  the  garden  for  a  while.  In  the 
meantime,  she  beguiled  him  over  to  her  own  bed,  and 
having  taken  off  the  coverlet  to  show  him  that  it  held 
no  lurking  horrors,  she  made  him  get  in  and  curl  up, 
and  she  knelt  beside  him,  whispering  softly  so  as  not 


Blue  Aloes  47 

to  disturb  the  others,  reassuring  him  of  her  belief  in 
his  courage  whilst  understanding  his  horror,  confessing 
her  own  hatred  of  spiders,  but  urging  him  to  try  and 
fight  against  his  fear  of  them.  She  told  him  stories  of 
her  own  childhood,  crooned  little  poems  to  him,  and 
sang  old  songs  softly,  hoping  and  praying  that  he 
would  presently  fall  asleep.  But  time  slipped  by,  and 
he  remained  wide-eyed,  gripping  her  hand  tightly,  and 
only  by  the  slightest  degrees  relaxing  the  nervous 
rigour  of  his  body  under  the  coverlet.  Suddenly,  he 
startled  her  by  a  strange  remark: 

"  If  I  could  only  get  into  the  pink  palace  with  Carol, 
I'd  be  all  right." 

The  girl  looked  down  into  the  distended  pupils 
gazing  so  wistfully  at  her,  and  wondering  what  new 
psychological  problem  she  had  to  deal  with.  She 
knew  she  must  go  very  warily,  or  defeat  her  own  long- 
ing to  help  him.  At  last,  she  said  very  tenderly, 

"The  world  is  full  of  pink  palaces,  Roddy,  but  we 
do  not  always  find  them  until  we  are  grown  up." 

He  looked  at  her  intently. 

"Carol  found  one  at  the  bottom  of  the  dam,"  he 
whispered  slowly.  "He  is  there  now;  it's  only  his 
body  that  is  buried  in  the  graveyard." 

She  smoothed  his  hair  gently  with  her  hand. 

"Carol  is  in  a  more  beautiful  palace  than  any  we 
find  here  on  earth,  darling." 

The  secret,  elfin  expression  crossed  his  face,  but  he 
said  nothing. 

"And  you  must  not  believe  that  about  the  dam," 
she  warned  him  gravely.  "There  is  nothing  at  the 
bottom  of  it  but  black  mud,  and  deep  water  that  would 
drown  you,  too,  if  you  went  in." 

"  I  know  the  palace  is  there,"  he  repeated  doggedly. 


48  Blue  Aloes 

"  I  have  seen  it.  The  best  time  to  see  it  is  in  the  early 
morning  or  in  the  evening.  All  the  towers  of  it  are 
pink  then,  and  you  can  see  the  golden  wings  of  the 
angels  shining  through  the  windows." 

"That  is  the  reflection  of  the  pink-and-gold  clouds 
in  the  sky  at  dawn  and  sunset  that  you  see,  dear  silly 
one.  Will  you  not  believe  me?" 

He  squeezed  her  hand  lovingly. 

"Mamma  has  seen  it,  too,"  he  whispered.  "You 
know  she  was  with  Carol  when  he  fell  in,  and  she  saw 
him  go  into  the  door  of  the  palace  and  be  met  by  all  the 
golden  angels.  She  tried  to  get  him  back,  but  she 
cannot  swim,  and  then  she  came  running  home  for 
help.  Afterward,  they  took  Carol's  body  out  and 
buried  him,  but,  you  know,  he  is  really  there  still. 
Mamma  has  seen  him  looking  through  the  windows — 
she  told  me — but  you  must  not  tell  any  one.  It  is 
very  secret,  and  once  I  thought  I  saw  him,  too,  beckon- 
ing to  me." 

Christine  was  staggered.  That  so  dangerous  an 
illusion  had  been  fostered  by  a  mother  was  too  be- 
wildering, and  she  hardly  knew  how  to  meet  and  loy- 
ally fight  it.  It  did  not  take  her  long  to  decide. 
With  all  the  strength  at  her  command,  she  set  to  work 
to  clear  away  from  his  mind  the  whole  fantastical 
construction.  He  clung  to  it  firmly  at  first,  and,  in  the 
end,  almost  pleaded  to  be  left  with  the  belief  that  he 
had  but  to  step  down  the  dam  wall  and  join  his  brother 
in  the  fair  pink  palace.  She  realized  now  what 
tragedy  had  been  lurking  at  her  elbow  all  these  days. 
Remembering  the  day  when  she  had  caught  him  up  at 
the  brink  of  the  dam,  she  turned  cold  as  ice  in  the  heat- 
heavy  room.  A  moment  later,  she  returned  to  her 
theme,  her  explanations,  her  prayers  for  a  promise 


Blue  Aloes  49 

from  him  that  never,  never  would  he  go  looking  again 
for  a  vision  that  did  not  exist.  At  last  he  promised, 
and  almost  immediately  fell  asleep. 

As  for  Christine  Chaine,  she  stayed  where  she  was 
on  the  floor,  her  head  resting  on  the  bed  in  sheer  ex- 
haustion, her  limbs  limp.  All  thought  of  going  into 
the  garden  had  left  her.  Sitting  there,  stiff-kneed  and 
weary,  she  thought  of  Saltire's  eyes,  and  realized  that 
there  had  come  and  gone  an  evening  which  she  must 
count  for  ever  among  the  lost  treasures  of  her  life. 
Yet  she  did  not  regret  it  as  she  rose  at  last  and  looked 
down  by  the  dim  light  on  the  pale,  beautiful,  but  com- 
posed little  face  on  the  pillow. 

She  lay  long  awake.  Roddy's  bed  was  too  short 
for  her,  and  there  was  no  ease  in  it,  even  had  her  mind 
and  heart  been  at  rest.  All  the  fantasies  she  had 
beguiled  from  the  boy's  brain  had  come  to  roost  in 
her  own,  with  a  hundred  other  vivid  and  painful 
impressions.  The  night,  too,  was  fuller  than  usual  of 
disquietude.  The  wind,  which  had  been  rising  stead- 
ily, now  tore  at  the  shutters  and  rushed  shrieking 
through  the  trees.  There  was  a  savage  rumble  of 
thunder  among  the  hills,  and,  intermittently,  lightning 
came  through  the  shutter-slats. 

When,  above  it  all,  she  heard  a  gentle  tapping,  and 
sensed  the  whispering  presence  without,  her  cup  of 
dreadful  unease  was  full.  But  she  was  not  afraid. 
She  rose,  as  she  had  done  one  night  before,  and  put  on 
her  dressing-gown.  For  a  while,  standing  close  to  the 
shutters,  she  strained  her  ears  to  catch  the  message 
whose  import  she  knew  so  well.  The  idea  of  speaking 
to  someone  or  something  as  anxious  as  herself  over 
Roddy  had  banished  all  horror.  She  longed  for  an 
interview  with  the  strange  being  without.  There  was 

4 


50  Blue  Aloes 

nothing  to  do  but  attempt,  as  before,  to  leave  the  house 
by  the  front  door. 

Down  the  long  passage  and  through  the  dining- 
room  she  felt  her  way,  moving  noiselessly.  When 
she  came  to  the  door,  she  found  it  once  again  with  the 
bar  hanging  loose.  More,  it  was  ajar,  and  stirring 
(sluggishly,  by  reason  of  its  great  weight)  to  the  wind. 
But  her  hand  fell  back  when  she  would  have  opened 
it  wide,  for  there  were  two  people  in  the  blackness  of 
the  porch,  bidding  each  other  good-night  with  kisses 
and  wild  words.  Clear  on  a  gust  of  wind  came  Isabel 
van  Cannan's  voice,  fiercely  passionate. 

"I  hate  the  place.  Oh,  to  be  gone  from  it,  Dick! 
To  be  gone  with  you,  my  darling!  When — when?" 

He  crushed  the  question  on  her  lips  with  kisses  and 
whisperings. 

Christine  Chaine  stole  back  from  whence  she  came, 
with  the  strange  and  terrible  sensation  that  her  heart 
was  being  crushed  between  iron  fingers  and  was  bleed- 
ing slowly,  drop  by  drop,  to  death.  Once  more,  life 
had  played  her  false.  Love  had  mocked  her  and 
passed  by  on  the  other  side. 

Some  of  the  men  wondered,  next  day,  how  they 
could  have  had  the  illusion  that  Miss  Chaine  was  a 
beautiful  girl.  The  two  Hollanders,  who  were  great 
friends,  discussed  the  matter  after  lunch  while  they 
were  clipping  feathers  from  the  ostriches.  One  thing 
was  quite  clear  to  them  both :  she  was  just  one  of  those 
cold  Englishwomen  without  a  drop  in  her  veins  of  the 
warmth  and  sparkle  that  a  man  likes  in  a  woman. 
Mrs.  van  Cannan  now — she  was  the  one!  Still,  it  was 
a  funny  thing  how  they  should  have  been  taken  in  over 
Miss  Chaine.  Someone  else  had  been  taken  in,  too, 


Blue  Aloes  51 

however,  and  with  a  vengeance — that  fellow  Saltire, 
with  his  "  sidey  "  manners.  He  had  got  a  cold  douche, 
if  you  like,  at  the  hands  of  the  proud  one.  They  had 
all  witnessed  it.  Thus  and  thus  went  the  Dutchmen's 
remarks  and  speculations,  and  they  chuckled  with  the 
malice  of  schoolboys  over  the  discomfiture  of  Saltire. 
For  it  was  well  known  to  them  and  to  the  other  men 
that  the  Englishman  had  ridden  off,  in  the  cool  hours 
of  the  dawn,  to  Farnie  Marais'  place  about  ten  miles 
away,  to  get  her  some  flowers.  He  wanted  to  borrow 
an  instrument,  he  said,  but  it  was  funny  he  should 
choose  to  go  to  Marais',  who  was  more  famous  for  the 
lovely  roses  he  grew  for  the  market  than  for  any  know- 
ledge of  scientific  instruments.  Funny,  too,  that  all 
he  had  been  seen  to  bring  back  was  a  bunch  of  yellow 
roses  that  must  have  cost  him  a  stiff  penny,  for  old 
Farnie  did  not  grow  roses  for  fun. 

No  one  had  seen  Saltire  present  the  roses  (that  must 
have  happened  in  the  dining-room  before  the  others 
came  in);  but  all  had  marked  the  careless  indifference 
with  which  they  were  scattered  on  the  table  and  spilled 
on  the  floor  beside  the  governess's  chair.  She  looked 
on  calmly,  too,  while  the  little  girls,  treating  them  like 
daisies,  pulled  several  to  pieces,  petal  by  petal.  Only 
the  boy  Roderick  had  appeared  to  attach  any  worth  to 
them.  He  rescued  some  from  under  the  table,  and 
was  overheard  to  ask  ardently  if  he  might  have  three 
for  his  own.  The  answer  that  he  might  have  them  all 
if  he  liked  was  not  missed  by  any  one  in  the  room, 
though  spoken  in  Miss  Chaine's  usual  quiet  tones.  It 
might  have  been  an  accident  that  she  walked  over 
some  of  the  spilled  roses  as  she  left  the  room,  but  cer- 
tainly she  could  not  have  shown  her  mind  more  plainly 
than  by  leaving  every  single  one  behind  her.  Roddy 


52  Blue  Aloes 

only,  with  a  pleased  and  secret  look  upon  his  face, 
carried  three  of  them  away  in  a  treasured  manner. 

Whatever  Saltire's  feelings  were  at  the  affront  put 
upon  him,  he  gave  no  sign.  He  was  not  one  who  wore 
his  emotions  where  they  could  be  read  by  all  who  ran, 
or  even  by  those  who  sat  and  openly  studied  him  with 
malice  and  amusement.  His  face  was  as  serene  as 
usual,  and  his  envied  gift  of  turning  events  of  the 
monotonous  everyday  veld  life  into  interesting  topics 
of  conversation  remained  unimpaired.  He  had  even 
risen,  as  always,  with  his  air  of  careless  courtesy,  to 
open  the  door  for  the  woman  who  walked  over  his 
flowers. 

The  fact  remained,  as  the  manager  said  to  the  fore- 
man after  lunch,  that  he  had  certainly  "caught  it  in 
the  neck,"  and  must  have  felt  it  somewhere.  Perhaps 
he  did.  Perhaps  he  merely  congratulated  himself 
that  the  little  scene  when  he  had  given  the  roses  to 
Miss  Chaine  had  been  lost  by  everyone  except  the 
children,  who  were  too  young  and  self-engrossed  to 
value  its  subtlety. 

Either  by  accident  or  design,  he  had  come  to  lunch 
a  little  earlier  than  usual,  and  as  Miss  Chaine  and 
the  children  were  always  in  their  seats  a  good  ten 
minutes  before  the  rest  of  the  party,  it  was  quite 
simple  for  him,  entering  quietly  and  before  she 
even  knew  of  his  presence,  to  lay  the  bunch  of  frag- 
rant roses  across  her  hands.  A  sweep  of  heavy  deli- 
cious perfume  rose  to  her  face,  and  she  gave  a  little 
rapturous  "Oh!" 

"  I  thought  you  might  like  them,"  said  Saltire,  with 
a  sort  of  boyish  diffidence  that  was  odd  in  him.  "  They 
are  just  the  colour  of  the  dress  you  wore  last  night." 

In  an  instant,  her  face  froze.     She  looked  at  him, 


Blue  Aloes  53 

with  eyes  from  which  every  vestige  of  friendliness  or 
liking  had  completely  disappeared,  and  said  politely, 
but  with  the  utmost  disdain: 

"Thank  you,  I  do  not  care  for  them.  Pray  give 
them  where  they  will  be  appreciated." 

She  pulled  her  hands  from  under  the  lovely  blooms 
and  pushed  them  away  as  if  there  were  something 
contaminating  in  their  touch.  Some  fell  on  the  table, 
some  on  the  floor.  For  a  moment,  Saltire  seemed 
utterly  taken  aback,  then  he  said  carelessly: 

"Throw  them  away  if  you  like.  They  were  meant 
for  you  and  no  one  else. " 

She  gave  him  a  curiously  cutting  glance,  but  spoke 
nothing.  As  the  sound  of  voices  told  of  the  approach 
of  the  other  men,  he  walked  to  his  place  without 
further  remark,  and  had  already  taken  his  seat  when 
Mrs.  van  Cannan,  followed  by  Saxby,  entered.  They 
were  talking  about  Saxby's  wife,  and  Mrs.  van  Cannan 
looked  infinitely  distressed. 

"  I  am  so  sorry.  I  will  go  and  sit  with  her  this 
afternoon  and  see  if  I  can  cheer  her  up,"  she  said. 

"  It  will  be  very  kind  of  you,"  said  Saxby  gratefully. 
"  I  have  never  known  her  so  low." 

"It  must  be  the  weather.  We  are  all  feeling  the 
heat  terribly.  If  only  the  rains  would  break." 

"They  are  not  far  off,"  said  Andrew  McNeil  cheer- 
fully. "  I  prophesy  that  tonight  every  kloof  will  be 
roaring  full,  and  tomorrow  will  see  the  river  in  flood." 

"  In  that  case,  the  mail  had  better  go  off  this  evening 
at  six,"  said  Mrs.  van  Cannan.  "It  may  be  held  up 
for  days  otherwise.  I  hope  everyone  has  their  letters 
ready?  Have  you,  Miss  Chaine?" 

"  I  have  one  or  two  still  to  write,  but  I  can  get 
through  them  quickly  this  afternoon." 


54  Blue  Aloes 

Christine  avoided  looking  directly  at  her.  She  felt 
that  the  woman  must  see  the  contempt  in  her  eyes. 
It  was  hard  to  say  which  she  detested  more  of  the  two 
sitting  there  so  serenely  cheerful — the  faithless  wife 
and  mother,  or  the  man  who  ate  another  man's  salt 
and  betrayed  him  in  his  absence.  It  made  her  feel 
sick  and  soiled  to  be  in  such  company,  to  come  into 
contact  with  such  creeping,  soft-footed,  whispering 
treachery.  She  ached  to  get  away  from  it  all  and  wipe 
the  whole  episode  from  her  mind.  Yet  how  could  she 
leave  the  children,  leave  Roddy,  desert  the  father's 
trust?  She  knew  she  could  not.  But  very  urgently 
she  wrote  after  lunch  to  Mr.  van  Cannan,  begging  him 
to  return  to  the  farm  as  soon  as  his  health  permitted 
and  release  her  from  her  engagement.  She  expressed 
it  as  diplomatically  as  she  was  able,  making  private 
affairs  her  reason  for  the  change;  but  she  could  not 
and  would  not  conceal  the  fervency  of  her  request. 

There  was  a  brooding  silence  in  the  room  where  she 
sat  writing  and  thinking.  Roddy,  for  once,  tired  out 
from  the  night  before,  slept  under  his  mosquito-net, 
side  by  side  with  the  little  girls,  and  Christine,  looking 
at  his  beautiful,  classical  face  and  sensitive  mouth, 
wondered  how  she  would  ever  be  able  to  carry  out  her 
plan  to  leave  the  farm.  Who  would  understand  him 
as  she  did,  and  protect  him?  Even  the  father  who 
loved  him  had  not  known  of  the  secret,  fantastic  dan- 
ger of  the  dam.  And  the  woman  who  should  have 
destroyed  the  fantasy  had  encouraged  it!  But  God 
knew  what  was  in  the  heart  of  that  strange  woman; 
Christine  Chaine  did  not — nor  wished  to.  AH  she 
wished  was  that  she  might  never  see  her  again.  As 
for  Saltire,  her  proud  resolve  was  to  blot  him  from  her 
memory,  to  forget  that  he  had  ever  occupied  her  heart 


Blue  Aloes  55 

for  a  moment.  But — O  God,  how  it  hurt,  that  empty, 
desecrated  heart!  How  it  haunted  her,  the  face  she 
had  thought  so  beautiful,  with  its  air  of  strength  and 
chivalry,  that  now  she  knew  to  be  a  mockery  and  a  lie! 

She  sat  in  the  shuttered  gloom,  with  her  hands 
pressed  to  her  temples,  and  bitter  tears  that  could  no 
longer  be  held  back  sped  down  her  cheeks.  In  all  the 
dark  hours  since  she  had  stolen  back  to  the  nursery, 
overwhelmed  by  the  discovery  of  a  hateful  secret,  she 
had  not  wept.  Her  spirit  had  lain  like  a  stricken  thing 
in  the  ashes  of  humiliation,  and  her  heart  had  stayed 
crushed  and  dead.  "  Cold  as  a  stone  in  a  valley  lone. " 
Now  it  was  wakened  to  pain  once  more  by  the  scent 
of  three  yellow  roses  carefully  placed  by  Roddy  in  a 
jug  on  the  table.  The  scent  of  those  flowers  told  her 
that  she  must  go  wounded  all  her  life.  She  could 
"  never  again  be  friends  with  roses."  He  had  even 
spoiled  those  for  her.  How  dared  he?  Oh,  how  dared 
he  come  to  her  with  gifts  of  flowers  in  his  hands 
straight  from  a  guilty  intrigue  with  another  man's 
wife? 

The  children  stirred  and  began  to  chirrup  drowsily, 
and  she  hastily  collected  herself,  forcing  back  her 
tears  and  assuming  the  expressionless  mask  which  life 
so  often  makes  women  wear.  She  was  only  just  in 
time.  A  moment  later,  Isabel  van  Cannan  came  into 
the  room  with  a  packet  of  letters  in  her  hands. 

"Oh,  Miss  Chaine,"  she  said,  with  her  pretty,  child- 
like air,  "would  it  be  too  much  to  ask  you  to  take  down 
these  letters  to  the  store  presently?  The  mail  is  to 
leave  about  four  o'clock.  I  have  to  go  out  myself  by 
and  by,  but  the  Saxbys'  house  is  in  the  opposite  direc- 
tion, as  you  know,  and  1  am  really  not  able  to  knock 
about  too  much  in  this  heat." 


56  Blue  Aloes 

"Certainly  I  will  take  them,"  said  Christine. 
"But  the  children?" 

"They  must  not  go,  of  course.  Indeed,  1  would  not 
ask  you  to  go  out  in  this  blaze,  but  I  don't  like  to  trust 
letters  with  servants.  There  is  no  hurry,  however. 
Finish  your  own  letters  first,  then  bring  the  children 
to  my  room.  They  will  amuse  themselves  there  all 
right." 

By  the  time  Christine  had  donned  a  shady  hat  and 
gloves,  Mrs.  van  Cannan  had  made  out  a  long  list  of 
articles  she  required  at  the  store.  The  household 
things  were  to  be  sent  in  the  ordinary  way,  but  she 
-begged  Christine  to  choose  some  coloured  cottons  that 
)she  required  for  new  pinafores  for  the  little  girls  and 
bring  them  along,  also  to  look  through  the  stock  of 
note-paper  for  anything  decently  suitable,  as  her  own 
stock  had  given  out.  It  was  the  type  of  errand 
Christine  was  unaccustomed  to  perform  and  plainly 
foreign  to  her  recognized  duties;  but  it  was  difficult  to 
be  unobliging  and  refuse,  so  she  took  the  letters  and 
the  list  and  departed. 

The  store  was  a  good  half-mile  off  and  the  going 
(in  hot  weather)  not  very  fast.  Then,  when  she  got 
there,  the  storekeeper  was  busy  with  his  own  mail,  and 
she  was  kept  waiting  until  various  goods  had  been 
packed  into  the  cart  before  the  door  and  driven  away 
with  the  mail  behind  four  prancing  mules.  Looking 
out  cottons  and  writing-paper  occupied  some  further 
time.  Stores  on  farms  are  poky  places,  and  the  things 
always  hidden  away  in  inaccessible  spots.  At  any 
rate,  the  best  part  of  an  hour  had  passed  before  Chris- 
tine was  again  on  her  way  home,  and  she  had  an  un- 
easy feeling  that  she  had  been  too  long  away  from  the 
children,  especially  from  Roddy.  Suddenly,  her  haste 


Blue  Aloes  57 

was  arrested  by  an  unexpected  sight.  A  tiny  spot  of 
colour  lay  right  in  her  pathway  on  the  ground.  It 
was  only  a  yellow  rose-leaf,  but  it  brought  a  catch  in 
Christine's  breath  and  her  feet  to  an  abrupt  halt. 
How  had  it  come  there?  If  it  had  fallen  from  one  of 
Roddy's  roses,  it  meant  that  he  had  been  out  of  doors 
since  she  left!  That  set  her  hurrying  on  again,  but, 
as  she  walked,  she  reflected  that  of  the  many  roses  left 
in  the  dining-room,  some  might  easily  have  been 
carried  off  by  the  servants  and  leaves  dropped  from 
them.  Still,  she  was  breathless  and  rather  pale  when 
she  reached  the  house,  wasting  not  a  moment  in  find- 
ing her  way  to  Mrs.  van  Cannan's  room. 

Rita  and  Coral  were  amusing  themselves  happily, 
winding  up  a  tangle  of  bright-coloured  silks.  But 
Roddy  was  gone!  Neither  was  Mrs.  van  Cannan 
there. 

Christine  sat  down  rather  suddenly,  but  her  voice 
gave  no  sign  of  the  alarm  she  felt. 

"Where  is  Roddy?" 

"He  went  out,"  answered  Rita,  perching  herself 
upon  Christine.  "  Mamma  is  going  to  give  us  each  a 
new  dolly  if  we  get  this  silk  untangled  for  her. " 

"How  long  ago  did  Roddy  go?" 

"Just  after  you  went.  But  you  mustn't  be  cross 
with  him;  Mamma  gave  him  permission." 

"Mamma  is  gone,  too,  to  see  poor  Mrs.  Saxby," 
prattled  Coral. 

Christine  put  them  gently  away  from  her. 

"Well,  hurry  up  and  earn  your  new  dollies,"  she 
counselled,  smiling;  "  I'll  be  back  very  soon  to  help 
you." 

In  the  dining-room,  she  looked  for  the  discarded 
roses  and  found  them  gathered  in  a  dying  heap  on  a 


58  Blue  Aloes 

small  side-table.  In  the  nursery,  she  found  two  of 
Roddy's  roses  in  the  jug.  The  third  was  missing! 

Of  one  thing  she  felt  as  certain  as  she  could  feel  of 
anything  in  the  shifting  quicksands  of  that  house,  and 
that  was  that  Roddy  had  not  gone  to  the  dam,  for  he 
had  promised  her  earnestly,  the  night  before,  that 
never  again  would  he  go  there  without  her.  Could 
he,  then,  have  gone  to  the  cemetery?  Even  that 
seemed  unlikely,  for  he  loved  her  to  go  with  him  on  his 
excursions  thither.  Where  else,  then?  The  rose-leaf 
she  had  passed  on  the  road  stuck  obstinately  in  her 
memory,  and  now  she  suddenly  remembered  that  the 
place  she  had  seen  it  was  near  the  barn  from  whence 
she  had  once  found  Roddy  emerging.  Perhaps  he  had 
gone  there  to  amuse  himself  in  his  own  mysterious 
fashion.  He  might  even  have  been  there  when  she 
passed.  Oh,  why  had  she  not  looked  in?  But  the 
omission  was  easily  rectified.  In  two  minutes  she  was 
out  of  doors  again,  walking  rapidly  the  way  she  had 
come. 

Roddy  was  not  in  the  barn,  however,  and  it  seemed 
at  a  glance  as  harmless  a  place  as  she  had  thought  it 
before.  An  end  of  it  was  full  of  forage,  and  one  side 
piled  high  with  old  farm-implements  and  empty  cases. 
Rather  to  the  fore  of  the  pile  stood  one  large  packing 
case,  sacking  and  straw  sticking  from  under  its  loose 
lid.  Christine  had  just  decided  there  was  nothing  here 
to  warrant  her  scrutiny  when,  lying  in  front  of  this 
case,  she  saw  something  that  drew  her  gaze  like  a 
magnet.  It  was  another  yellow  rose-leaf. 

"Roddy!"  she  cried,  and  was  astonished  at  the 
sharp  relief  in  her  voice,  for  she  had  suddenly  made  up 
her  mind  that  the  boy  was  there  hiding  from  her. 
There  was  no  answer  to  her  call.  Very  slowly  then 


Blue  Aloes  59 

<0 

she  went  over  and  lifted  the  lid  of  the  case.  It  was 
quite  loose,  and  edged  with  a  fringe  of  strong  nails 
that  had  once  fastened  it  to  the  box,  but  which  now 
were  red  with  rust.  A  quantity  of  sacking,  of  the 
kind  used  for  winding  about  fragile  goods,  lay  heaped 
at  the  top  and  came  away  easily  to  her  hand,  exposing 
that  which  lay  firmly  wedged  at  the  bottom.  What 
she  had  expected  to  find  she  did  not  know.  What 
she  did  find  astonished  her  beyond  all  things.  It  was 
a  beautifully  chiselled  white  marble  tombstone  in  the 
shape  of  a  cross.  The  whole  of  the  inscription  was 
clear  of  dust  or  any  covering  save  one  fading  yellow 
rose.  Awed,  deeply  touched,  and  feeling  herself  upon 
the  verge  of  a  mysterious  revelation,  Christine  lifted 
Roddy's  yellow  rose  and  read  the  simple  gold-lettered 
inscription: 

TO  THE  MEMORY  OF  MY  BELOVED  WIFE, 
CLARICE  VAN  CANNAN 

(BORN  QUENTIN), 

WHO  DIED  AT  EAST  LONDON,  JUNE  J,  \g — ,  AND  WAS 

BROUGHT  BACK  TO  REST  NEAR  HER  SORROWING 

HUSBAND  AND  CHILDREN. 

(AGED  27) 

The  date  of  death  was  two  years  old. 

Much  that  had  been  dark  became  clear  to  Christine. 
She  understood  at  last.  The  woman  whose  sad  fate 
was  here  recorded,  cut  off  at  twenty-seven — that 
fairest  period  in  a  happy  woman's  life — was  Roddy's 
mother,  the  mother  of  all  the  little  van  Cannan  chil- 
dren, living  and  dead.  The  woman  who  had  ousted 


60  Blue  Aloes 

her  memory  from  all  hearts  save  loving,  loyal  Roddy's 
was  the  second  wife  and  stepmother. 

Much  in  the  attitude  of  the  big,  blond,  laughing 
woman  who  reigned  now  at  Blue  Aloes,  false  to  her 
husband,  careless  of  the  fate  of  his  children,  was 
accounted  for,  too.  The  sorrows  of  the  van  Cannans 
had  never  touched  her.  How  should  they?  Had 
not  Christine  heard  from  her  own  lips,  the  night  before, 
the  confession  of  her  love  for  another,  and  her  hatred 
of  Bernard  van  Cannan's  home.  How,  then,  should 
she  love  Bernard  van  Cannan's  children? 

The  cruel  taunt  of  cowardice  she  had  flung  at  Roddy 
was  explained.  The  boy's  senstive,  loyal  nature  was  a 
book  too  deep  for  her  reading,  the  memory  of  his  loved 
ones  too  sweet  and  tenacious  for  her  to  tamper  with. 
Nevertheless,  she  had  understood  him  well  enough  to 
set  a  bond  on  his  honour  never  to  speak  of  the  dead 
woman  who  slept  in  the  unmarked  grave  while  her 
tombstone  lay  in  the  rubble  of  an  outhouse.  The 
spell  by  which  she  had  won  the  man  to  forgetfulness 
and  neglect  was  not  the  same  as  that  by  which  she  had 
induced  silence  in  the  boy.  A  promise  had  been  wrung 
from  him — perhaps  even  under  duress!  Suddenly, 
terror  swept  over  Christine  Chaine.  It  was  revealed 
to  her,  as  in  a  vision,  that  the  pink-and-white  woman 
who  laughed  with  such  childlike  innocence  by  day  and 
whispered  so  passionately  to  her  lover  by  night  could 
be  capable  of  many  things  not  good  for  those  who  stood 
in  the  way  of  her  wishes. 

Why  had  two  of  the  van  Cannan  sons  died  sudden 
deaths?  Why  was  the  lure  of  a  pink  palace  at  the 
bottom  of  the  dam  fostered  in  the  third?  How  had 
the  tarantula  come  into  his  bed,  and  why  had  someone 
said  that  it  acted  like  a  thing  drugged  or  intoxicated, 


Blue  Aloes  61 

and  that,  when  it  woke  up,  it  would  have  been  a  bad 
lookout  for  Roddy? 

"God  forgive  me!"  cried  the  distracted  girl  to  her- 
self. "  Perhaps  I  am  more  wicked  than  she,  to  har- 
bour such  thoughts!" 

Then,  as  if  at  a  call  that  her  heart  heard  rather  than 
her  ears,  she  found  herself  running  out  of  the  barn  and 
across  the  veld  in  the  hot,  stormy  sunshine,  in  the 
direction  of  the  Saxbys'  bungalow. 

She  had  never  been  there  before,  though  often,  in 
their  walks,  she  and  the  children  had  passed  within 
a  stone's  throw  of  the  little  wood-and-iron  building. 
The  door  was  always  shut,  and  the  windows  hidden 
by  the  heavy  creeper  that  covered  in  the  stoep.  She 
had  often  thought  what  a  drab  and  dreary  life  it  must 
be  for  a  woman  to  live  hidden  away  there,  and  even 
the  children  never  passed  without  a  compassionate 
allusion  to  "poor  Mrs.  Saxby,  always  shut  up  there 
alone." 

A  dread  of  seeing  the  sad,  disfigured  creature  seized 
her  now,  as  she  reached  the  darkened  stoep,  and  held 
her  back  for  a  moment.  She  stood  wondering  why  she 
had  come  and  how  she  could  expect  to  find  Roddy 
there  where  the  children  had  never  been  allowed  to 
penetrate.  But,  in  the  very  act  of  hesitation,  she 
heard  the  boy's  voice  ring  out. 

"No,  mamma;  please  don't  make  me  do  it!" 

In  a  couple  of  swift  steps  she  was  in  the  stoep  and 
her  hand  on  the  knob  of  the  door.  But  the  door  would 
not  open.  There  were  two  narrow  windows  that  gave 
onto  the  stoep,  and,  without  pause,  she  flew  to  the  one 
that  she  judged  to  be  in  the  direction  of  the  child's 
voice  and  laid  hands  upon  it.  It  was  closed  and  cur- 
tained with  thick  blue  muslin,  but  there  were  no  shut- 


62  Blue  Aloes 

ters,  and  to  her  forceful  push  the  lower  part  jerked  up, 
and  the  curtains  divided.  She  found  herself  standing 
there,  the  silent  spectator  of  a  scene  in  which  all  the 
actors  were  silent,  too  amazed  or  paralyzed  by  her 
unexpected  appearance. 


PART   III 

THE  room  was  a  common  little  sitting-room  with  a 
table  in  the  centre,  at  either  end  of  which  sat  Mrs.  van 
Cannan  and  Mr.  Saxby.  Roddy  was  between  the 
table  and  the  wall,  and  Christine's  first  glance 
showed  him  white-faced  and  staring  with  fascinated, 
fearful  eyes  at  a  large  cardboard  box,  with  a  flat-iron 
on  its  lid,  which  stood  on  the  table.  The  two  elder 
people  were  each  holding  small  knobkerries,  that 
is,  stout  sticks  with  wired  handles  and  heavy  heads 
made  by  the  natives.  A  revolver  lay  at  Saxby's 
elbow. 

The  little  tableau  remained  stationary  just  long 
enough  for  Christine  to  observe  all  details;  then  every- 
one acted  at  once.  Roddy  flew  round  the  table  and 
reached  her  at  the  window,  sobbing: 

"Oh,  Miss  Chaine!     Miss  Chaine!" 

Saxby  laid  his  knobkerrie  on  the  table  and  lit  a 
cigarette,  and  Mrs.  van  Cannan,  rising  from  her  seat 
with  an  air  of  dignity  outraged  beyond  all  bounds, 
addressed  Christine. 

"What  is  the  meaning  of  this  intrusion,  Miss 
Chaine?  How  dare  you  come  bursting  into  Mr. 
Saxby's  house  like  this?" 

"I  heard  Roddy  call  out,"  was  the  firm  answer, 
"and  I  consider  it  my  duty  to  protect  him."  She  had 
the  boy  well  within  her  reach  now,  and  could  easily 

63 


64  Blue  Aloes 

have  lifted  him  out  of  the  low  window,  but  it  seemed 
an  undignified  thing  to  do  unless  it  became  absolutely 
necessary. 

"Protect  him!  From  what,  may  I  ask?"  The 
woman's  voice  was  like  a  knife. 

"  I  don't  know  from  what.  1  only  know  that  he  was 
in  grave  fear  of  something  you  were  about  to  do. " 

Saxby  interposed  with  a  soft  laugh. 

"  You  surely  cannot  suppose  Roddy  was  in  any  dan- 
ger from  his  mother,  Miss  Chaine — or  that  I  would 
harm  him?" 

He  certainly  did  not  look  very  harmful  with  his  full, 
handsome  features  and  melancholy  smile. 

"  Your  action  is  both  ridiculous  and  impertinent," 
continued  Mrs.  van  Cannan  furiously.  "And  I  can  tell 
you  that  I  will  not  stand  that  sort  of  thing  from  any 
one  in  my  house,"  she  added,  with  the  air  of  one  dis- 
missing a  servant:  "  You  may  go.  Roddy,  come  here!" 

Roddy  gave  a  wild  cry. 

"  Don't  leave  me,  Miss  Chaine.  They've  got  a 
snake  in  that  box,  and  they  want  me  to  let  it  out." 

There  was  blank  silence  for  a  moment;  then  Chris- 
tine spoke  with  deliberation. 

"  If  this  is  true,  it  is  the  most  infamous  thing  I  have 
ever  heard." 

Even  Isabel  van  Cannan  was  silenced,  and  Saxby's 
deprecating  smile  passed.  He  said  gravely: 

"  Mrs.  van  Cannan  has  a  right  to  use  what  methods 
she  thinks  best  to  cure  her  boy  of  cowardice. " 

"Cowardice!"  Christine  answered  him  scornfully. 
"The  word  would  be  better  applied  to  those  who 
deliberately  terrify  a  child.  I  am  astonished  at  a  man 
taking  part  in  such  a  vile  business." 

She  was  pale  with  indignation  and  pity  for  the  boy 


Blue  Aloes  65 

who  trembled  in  her  arms,  and  in  no  mood  to  choose 
her  words. 

Saxby  shrugged  his  shoulders  with  a  sort  of  helpless 
gesture  toward  his  companion  as  if  to  say  he  had  only 
done  as  he  was  told.  Mrs.  van  Cannan  gave  him  a 
furious  glance  before  returning  to  Christine. 

"Can't  you  see,"  she  said  violently,  "that  we  have 
sticks  here  ready  to  kill  the  thing,  and  a  revolver  if 
necessary?  Not  that  it  is  poisonous — if  it  had  bitten 
that  miserable  little  worm!"  She  cast  a  withering 
glance  at  Roddy.  He  shrank  closer  to  Christine,  who 
judged  it  time  to  pull  him  safely  from  the  room  to  her 
side  on  to  the  veranda. 

"There  is  nothing  miserable  about  Roddy,"  she 
said  fiercely,  "except  his  misfortune  in  having  a  step- 
mother who  neither  loves  nor  understands  him." 

That  blenched  the  woman  at  the  table.  She  turned 
a  curious  yellow  colour,  and  her  golden-brown  eyes 
appeared  to  perform  an  evolution  in  her  head  that, 
for  a  moment,  showed  nothing  of  them  but  the  eyeball. 

"That  will  do,"  she  hissed,  advancing  menacingly 
upon  Christine.  "  I  always  felt  you  were  a  spy.  But 
you  shall  not  stay  prying  here  another  day.  Pack 
your  things  and  go  at  once." 

"Come,  come,  Mrs.  van  Cannan,"  interposed  Saxby 
soothingly;  "  I  am  sure  you  are  unjust  to  Miss  Chaine. 
Besides,  how  can  she  go  at  once?  There  is  nothing  for 
her  to  travel  by  until  the  cart  returns  from  Cradock." 

But  the  woman  he  addressed  had  lost  all  control  of 
herself. 

"She  goes  tomorrow,  cart  or  no  cart!"  she  shouted, 
and  struck  one  clenched  fist  on  the  other.  "We  will 
see  who  is  mistress  at  Blue  Aloes!" 

Christine  cast  at  her  the  look  of  a  well-bred  woman 
s 


66  Blue  Aloes 

insulted  by  a  brawling  fishwife,  and  with  Roddy's 
hand  tightly  in  hers,  walked  out  of  the  veranda  with- 
out deigning  to  answer. 

But  though  her  mien  was  haughty  as  she  walked 
away  from  Saxby's  bungalow  holding  Roddy's  hand, 
her  spirits  were  at  zero.  She  had  burned  her  boats 
with  a  vengeance,  and  come  out  into  the  open  to  face 
an  enemy  who  would  stick  at  nothing,  and  who,  ap- 
parently, had  everyone  at  the  farm  at  her  side,  includ- 
ing the  big,  good-natured-seeming  Saxby. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  stay  on  at  Blue  Aloes  and 
protect  Roddy  if  his  stepmother  insisted  on  her  de- 
parture, and  she  did  not  see  how  she  was  going  to  do 
it.  She  only  knew  that  nothing  and  no  one  should 
budge  her  from  the  place.  Something  dogged  in  her 
upheld  her  from  dismay  and  determined  her  to  take  a 
stand  against  the  whole  array  of  them.  She  was  in  the 
right,  and  it  was  her  plain  duty  to  do  as  Bernard  van 
Cannan  had  besought,  and  not  go  until  she  could  place 
Roddy  in  his  father's  hands  with  the  full  story  of  his 
persecutions. 

"Tell  me  about  it,  Roddy,"  she  said  quietly,  as 
they  walked  away.  "  Don't  hide  anything.  You 
know  that  I  love  you  and  that  your  father  has  trusted 
you  to  my  care. " 

"  Yes,"  he  assented  eagerly;  "  but  how  did  you  know 
about  my  real  mammie  being  dead?"  His  natural 
resilience  had  already  helped  him  to  surmount  the 
terror  just  past,  and  he  was  almost  himself  again.  "  I 
wanted  to  tell  you,  but  I  had  promised  mamma  not  to 
tell  anyone." 

It  was  as  Christine  had  supposed.  She  explained 
her  finding  of  the  tombstone  and  the  yellow  rose,  but 
not  the  rest  of  her  terrible  conclusions. 


Blue  Aloes  67 

i 

"  I  put  it  there,"  he  said  shyly.  "She  always  loved 
yellow  and  red  flowers.  I  was  keeping  the  other  two 
for  her  and  Carol  in  the  graveyard." 

Christine  squeezed  the  warm  little  hand,  but  con- 
tinued her  questions  steadily. 

"What  happened  after  you  had  been  to  the  out- 
house?" 

"  Mamma  was  waiting  for  me  on  the  stoep.  She 
said  she  wanted  me  to  come  with  her  to  see  Mrs. 
Saxby."  He  added,  with  the  sudden  memory  of  sur- 
prise: "But  we  didn't  see  Mrs.  Saxby.  I  wonder 
where  she  was." 

The  same  wonder  seized  Christine.  Where  could 
the  unhappy,  distraught  creature  have  been  hiding 
while  the  trial  of  Roddy  was  in  process? 

"What  happened  then?" 

"We  just  went  into  the  sitting-room,  and  Mr.  Saxby 
got  the  box  and  the  knobkerries  and  his  revolver,  and 
mamma  said,  'Now,  Roddy,  there  is  a  snake  in  that 
box,  and  I  want  you  to  prove  you  are  not  a  coward  like 
last  night  by  taking  off  the  lid.' '  He  shuddered 
violently.  "  But  I  couldn't.  Oh,  Miss  Chaine,  am  I 
a  coward?"  he  pleaded. 

"No,  darling;  you  are  not,"  she  said  emphatically. 
"Nobody  in  their  senses  would  touch  a  box  with  a 
snake  in  it.  It  was  very  wrong  to  ask  you  to." 

He  looked  at  her  gratefully. 

"Then  you  opened  the  window.  Oh,  how  glad  I 
felt!  It  was  just  like  as  if  God  had  sent  you,  for  my 
heart  felt  as  if  it  was  calling  out  to  you  all  the  time. 
Perhaps  you  heard  it  and  that  made  you  come?" 

"I  did,  Roddy,"  she  said  earnestly,  "I  ran  all  the 
way  from  the  outhouse,  because  I  felt  you  were  in 
need  of  me." 


68  Blue  Aloes 

They  were  nearly  home  when  they  saw  Saltire  and 
his  boys  close  beside  their  path.  Roddy  was  urgent  to 
stop  and  talk,  but  Christine  made  the  fact  that  heavy 
rain-drops  were  beginning  to  fall  an  excuse  for  hurrying 
on,  and  indeed  in  Saltire's  face  there  was  no  invitation 
to  linger,  for,  though  he  smiled  at  Roddy,  Christine 
had  never  seen  him  so  cold  and  forbidding-looking. 

"He  knows  that  I  know,"  she  thought,  "and, 
base  as  he  is,  that  disturbs  him. "  The  bitter  thought 
brought  her  no  consolation.  She  felt  desolate  and 
alone,  like  one  lost  in  a  desert,  with  a  great  task  to 
accomplish  and  no  friend  in  sight  or  sign  in  the  skies. 
In  the  house,  she  collected  the  little  girls,  and  they 
spent  the  rest  of  the  afternoon  together.  The  storm 
had  broke  suddenly,  and  the  long-threatened  rain  came 
at  last,  lashing  up  the  earth  and  battering  on  the 
window-panes  amid  deafening  claps  of  thunder  and  a 
furious  gale  of  wind. 

When  bath-time  came  for  the  children,  Christine 
stayed  with  them  until  the  last  moment,  superintend- 
ing Meekie.  She  would  have  given  worlds  to  avoid 
going  in  to  dinner  that  night.  No  one  could  have 
desired  food  less,  or  the  society  of  those  with  whom  she 
must  partake  of  it.  Yet  she  felt  that  it  would  be  a 
sign  of  weakness  and  a  concession  to  the  enemy  if  she 
stayed  away,  so  she  dressed  as  usual  and  went  in  to 
face  the  dreary  performance  of  sitting  an  hour  or  so 
with  people  whom  she  held  in  fear  as  well  as  contempt, 
for  she  knew  not  from  moment  to  moment  what  new 
offence  she  might  have  to  meet.  Only  great  firmness 
of  spirit  and  her  natural  good  breeding  sustained  her 
through  that  trying  meal. 

Saltire  did  not  put  in  an  appearance,  for  which  small 
mercy  she  was  fain  to  thank  God.  Deeply  as  he  had 


Blue  Aloes  69 

wounded  and  offended  her,  she  hated  to  see  his  face 
as  she  had  seen  it  that  afternoon.  Mrs.  van  Cannan, 
oddly  pallid  but  with  burning  eyes,  absolutely  ignored 
the  presence  of  the  governess,  and  her  lead  was  fol- 
lowed by  all  save  Andrew  McNeil,  who  was  no  man's 
man  but  his  own,  and  always  treated  the  girl  with 
genial  friendliness.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  was  but 
little  conversation,  for  the  sound  of  the  rain,  swishing 
down  on  the  roof  and  windows  and  tearing  through  the 
trees  without,  deadened  the  sound  of  voices,  and  every- 
one seemed  distrait. 

Christine  was  not  the  only  one  who  finished  her 
meal  hurriedly.  As  she  rose,  asking  to  be  excused, 
Mrs.  van  Cannan,  rising  too,  detained  her. 

"  I  wish  to  make  arrangements  with  you  about  your 
departure  tomorrow,  Miss  Chaine,"  she  said,  loudly 
enough  for  everyone's  hearing.  "  Kindly  come  to  my 
room." 

There  was  nothing  to  be  gained  by  not  complying. 
Christine  did  not  mean  to  leave  the  next  day,  and  this 
seemed  a  good  opportunity  for  stating  her  reasons  and 
intentions;  she  buckled  on  her  moral  armour  as  she 
followed  the  trailing  pink-and-white  draperies  down 
the  long  passage,  preparing  for  an  encounter  of  steel 
on  steel. 

"Close  the  door,"  said  Isabel  van  Cannan,  and  went 
straight  to  a  table  drawer,  taking  out  a  small  bag  full 
of  money. 

"  I  shall  give  you  a  month's  salary  instead  of  notice, " 
she  announced,  counting  out  sovereigns,  "though,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  I  believe  you  are  not  entitled  to  it, 
considering  the  scandalous  way  you  have  behaved, 
plotting  and  spying  and  setting  the  children  against 
me." 


yo  Blue  Aloes 

Christine  disdained  to  answer  this  lying  charge. 
She  only  said  quietly: 

"  It  is  useless  to  offer  me  money,  Mrs.  van  Cannan. 
I  have  no  intention  of  leaving  the  farm  until  Mr.  van 
Cannan  returns." 

"What  do  you  mean?  How  dare  you?"  began  the 
other,  with  a  return  of  her  loud  and  insolent  manner. 

"Don't  shout,"  said  Christine  coldly.  "You  only 
degrade  yourself  and  do  not  alarm  me.  I  mean  what 
I  have  said.  Mr.  van  Cannan  engaged  me,  and  en- 
trusted his  children  to  my  care,  not  only  when  I  came 
but  by  letter  since  his  departure.  I  do  not  mean  to 
desert  that  trust  or  relegate  it  to  any  hands  but  his 
own. " 

"  He  never  wrote  to  you.  I  don't  believe  a  word  of 
it." 

"  You  are  at  liberty  to  believe  what  you  choose.  I 
have  the  proof,  and  shall  produce  it  if  necessary.  In 
the  meantime,  please  understand  plainly  that  I  do  not 
intend  to  be  parted  from  Roddy." 

A  baffled  look  passed  over  the  other's  features,  but 
she  laughed  contemptuously. 

"We  shall  see,"  she  sneered.  "Wait  till  tomorrow, 
and  we  shall  see  how  much  your  proofs  and  protests 
avail  you." 

"As  we  both  know  each  other's  minds  and  inten- 
tions, there  is  no  use  in  prolonging  this  very  disagree- 
able interview,"  answered  Christine  calmly,  and 
walked  out. 

The  dining-room  was  silent  and  dim.  The  men  had 
evidently  braved  the  rain  for  the  sake  of  getting  early 
to  their  own  quarters,  and  no  one  was  about.  In  the 
nursery,  the  lamp  by  which  she  sometimes  read  or 
wrote  at  her  own  table  had  not  been  lighted.  Only  a 


Blue  Aloes  71 

sheltered  candle  on  the  wash-hand  stand  cast  a  dim 
shadow  toward  the  three  little  white  beds  under  their 
mosquito-nets.  Meekie  had  gone,  but  the  quiet 
breathing  of  the  children  came  faintly  to  the  girl  as 
she  sat  down  by  her  table,  thankful  for  a  little  space 
of  silence  and  solitude  in  which  to  collect  her  forces. 
She  saw  violent  and  vulgar  scenes  ahead.  Mrs.  van 
Cannan,  now  that  her  true  colours  were  unmasked, 
and  it  was  no  longer  worth  while  to  play  the  soft, 
sleepy  role  behind  which  she  hid  her  fierce  nature, 
would  stick  at  nothing  to  get  rid  of  Christine  and  set 
the  whole  world  against  her.  Though  the  girl's 
resolution  held  firm,  a  dull  despair  filled  her.  How 
vile  and  cruel  life  could  be !  Friendship  was  a  mockery  ; 
love,  disillusion  and  ashes;  nothing  held  sweet  and 
true  but  the  hearts  of  little  children.  An  arid  con- 
clusion for  a  girl  from  whom  the  gods  had  not  with- 
drawn those  two  surpassing  and  swiftly  passing  gifts — 
youth  and  beauty. 

"To  be  a  cynic  at  twenty-two! "she  thought  bitterly, 
and  looked  at  her  white,  ringless  hands.  "  I  must 
have  loved  my  kind  even  better  than  Chamfort,  who 
said  that  no  one  who  had  loved  his  kind  well  could  fail 
to  be  a  misanthrope  at  forty.  And  I  thought  I  had 
left  it  all  behind  in  civilized  England !  Cruelty,  false- 
ness, treachery!  But  they  are  everywhere.  Even 
here,  on  a  South  African  farm  in  the  heart  of  a  desert, 
I  find  them  in  full  bloom." 

She  bowed  her  head  in  her  hands  and  strove  for 
peace  and  forgetfulness,  if  for  that  night  only.  In  the 
end,  she  found  calmness  at  least,  by  reciting  softly  to 
herself  the  beautiful  Latin  words  of  her  creed.  Then 
she  arose  and  took  the  candle  in  her  hand  for  a  final 
look  at  the  children  before  she  retired.  The  day 


72  Blue  Aloes 

had  been  terrible  and  full  of  surprises,  but  fate  had 
reserved  a  last  and  staggering  one  for  this  hour. 
Roddy's  bed  was  empty! 

The  shock  of  the  discovery  dazed  her  for  a  moment. 
It  was  too  horrible  to  think  that  she  had  been  sitting 
there  all  this  time,  wasting  precious  moments,  while 
Roddy  was — where?  O  God,  where,  and  in  what 
cruel  hands  on  this  night  of  fierce  storm  and  stress? 
When  was  it  that  he  had  gone?  Why  had  not  Meekie 
been  at  her  post  as  usual?  She  caught  up  the  light 
and  ran  from  the  nursery  into  one  room  after  another 
of  the  house. 

All  was  silent.  The  servants  were  gone,  the  rooms 
empty.  No  sound  but  the  pitiless  battering  of  the 
rain  without.  At  last  she  came  to  Isabel  van  Can- 
nan's  room  and  rapped  sharply.  There  was  no  answer, 
and  she  made  no  bones  about  turning  the  door-handle, 
for  this  was  no  time  for  ceremony.  But  the  bedroom, 
though  brightly  lighted,  was  empty.  She  did  not  enter, 
but  stood  in  the  doorway,  searching  with  her  eyes 
every  corner  and  place  that  could  conceivably  hide  a 
small  boy.  But  there  was  no  likely  place.  Even 
the  bed  stood  high  on  tall  brass  legs,  and  its  short 
white  quilt  showed  that  nothing  could  be  hidden 
there.  One  object,  however,  that  Christine  Chaine 
had  not  sought  forced  itself  upon  her  notice — an 
object  that,  even  in  her  distress  of  mind,  she  had  time 
to  find  extraordinary  and  unaccountable  in  this  house 
of  extraordinary  and  unaccountable  things.  On  the 
dressing-table  was  a  wig-stand  of  the  kind  to  be  seen 
in  the  window  of  a  fashionable  coiffeur.  It  had  a 
stupid,  waxen  face,  and  on  its  head  was  arranged  a  wig 
of  blond  curly  hair  with  long  golden  plaits  hanging 
down  on  each  side,  even  as  the  plaits  of  Isabel  van 


Blue  Aloes  73 

Cannan  hung  about  her  shoulders  as  she  lay  among  her 
pillows  every  morning.  The  thing  gave  Christine  a 
thrill  such  as  all  the  horrors  of  that  day  had  not  caused 
her.  So  innocent,  yet  so  sinister,  perched  there  above 
the  foolish,  waxen  features,  it  seemed  symbolical  of  the 
woman  who  hid  cruel  and  terrible  things  behind  her 
babylike  airs  and  sleepy  laughter. 

Atop  of  these  thoughts  came  the  woman  herself, 
emerging  en  deshabille  from  her  adjoining  bathroom. 
The  moment  she  saw  Christine,  she  flung  a  towel 
across  her  head,  but  too  late  for  her  purpose.  The 
girl  had  seen  the  short,  crisp,  almost  snowy  curls  that 
were  hidden  by  day  under  the  golden  wig,  and  realized 
in  an  instant  that  she  was  in  the  presence  of  a  woman 
of  a  breed  she  had  never  known — mulatto,  albino,  or 
some  strange  admixture  of  native  and  European 
blood.  The  golden  hair,  assisted  by  artificial  aids  to 
the  complexion,  and  her  large  golden-brown  eyes  had 
lent  an  extraordinary  blondness  to  the  skin.  But  the 
moment  the  wig  was  off,  the  mischief  was  out.  The 
thickness  of  eyelids  and  nostril,  and  a  certain  cruel, 
sensuous  fulness  of  the  lips  and  jaw  told  the  dark  tale, 
and  Christine  wondered  how  she  could  ever  have  been 
taken  in,  except  that  the  woman  before  her  was  as 
clever  as  she  was  cruel  and  unscrupulous.  A  tingling 
horror  stole  through  her  veins  as  she  stood  there,  sus- 
taining a  malignant  glance  and  listening  dumfounded 
to  an  insolent  inquiry  as  to  what  further  spying  she 
had  come  to  do. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  she  stammered.  "  I  knocked, 
and,  getting  no  answer,  opened  the  door,  hardly  know- 
ing what  I  did  in  my  distress.  Roddy  is  missing  from 
his  bed,  and  I  don't  know  where  to  look  for  him." 

The  other  had  turned  away  for  a  moment,  adjusting 


74  Blue  Aloes 

the  covering  on  her  head  before  a  mirror.  She 
may  still  have  believed  that  her  secret  remained 
unrevealed. 

"  I  haven't  the  faintest  notion  of  Roddy's  where- 
abouts," she  said,  "and  if  he  is  lost  out  in  this  storm, 
perhaps  drowned  in  one  of  the  kloofs,  yours  will  be  the 
blame,  and  I  will  see  you  are  brought  to  book  for  it." 
She  spoke  with  the  utmost  malice  and  satisfaction. 
"Now,  get  out  of  my  room!" 

Christine  went.  Indeed,  she  was  convinced  that  for 
once  the  woman  spoke  truth  and  that  Roddy  was  not 
there  or  anywhere  in  the  house.  It  was  out-of-doors 
that  she  must  seek  him.  So  back  to  her  room  on 
winged  feet  to  get  a  waterproof  and  make  her  way 
from  the  house.  For  once,  the  front  door  was  barred ! 
Outside,  the  rain  had  ceased  as  suddenly  as  it  had 
burst  from  the  heavens.  Only  the  wind  swished  and 
howled  wildly  among  the  trees,  tearing  up  handfuls  of 
gravel  to  fling  against  the  doors  and  windows.  Afar 
off  was  a  roaring  sound  new  to  her,  that,  later,  she  dis- 
covered to  be  the  rushing  waters  in  the  kloofs  that 
were  tearing  tumultuously  to  swell  the  river  a  few 
miles  off.  Clouds  had  blotted  out  moon  and  stars. 
All  the  light  there  was  came  intermittently  from  whip- 
like  lightning  flashes  across  the  sky.  It  helped  Chris- 
tine a  little  as  she  stumbled  through  the  darkness, 
crying  out  Roddy's  name,  but  she  found  herself  often 
colliding  with  trees,  and  prickly-pear  bushes  seemed  to 
be  rushing  hither  and  thither,  waving  fantastic  arms 
and  clutching  for  her  as  she  passed.  The  idea  had 
come  to  her  suddenly  to  seek  Andrew  McNeil  and  ask 
for  his  help.  He  was  the  only  friendly  soul  of  all  those 
on  the  farm  that  she  could  turn  to.  True,  another  face 
presented  itself  to  her  mind  for  one  moment,  but  she 


Blue  Aloes  75 

banished  it  with  scorn,  despising  herself  for  even 
thinking  of  Dick  Saltire. 

She  fancied  that  McNeil  lodged  at  the  storekeeper's 
place,  and  set  herself  to  find  the  route  she  had  taken 
that  afternoon — no  easy  task  in  the  darkness  that  sur- 
rounded her.  But  at  last  she  saw  a  twinkle  of  light, 
and,  approaching  closer,  found  that,  by  great  good 
luck,  she  had  indeed  happened  on  the  store.  The  door 
stood  open,  and  she  could  see  the  man  behind  the 
counter  talking  to  McNeil,  who,  seated  on  an  upturned 
case,  was  smoking  peacefully.  Someone  else  was  there 
too — someone  whose  straight  back  and  gallant  air  was 
very  familiar  to  her.  Saltire  was  buying  tobacco  from 
the  storekeeper.  But  Christine  had  no  word  for  him. 
She  went  straight  to  McNeil  with  her  story. 

"Roddy  is  lost!"  she  cried.  "You  must  please 
come  and  help  me  find  him." 

The  men  stared,  electrified  at  her  appearance. 
White  as  a  bone,  her  beautiful  violet  eyes  full  of  haunt- 
ing fear;  her  hair,  torn  down  by  the  wind  and  flickering 
in  long  black  strands  about  her  face,  far  below  her 
waist,  she  looked  like  a  wraith  of  the  storm. 

"Roddy  lost!"  McNeil  and  the  storekeeper  turned 
mechanically  as  one  man  to  Saltire.  It  was  only  the 
girl  who  would  not  turn  to  him. 

"Come  quickly!"  she  urged.  "He  may  be  drown- 
ing somewhere,  even  now,  in  one  of  the  swollen 
streams."  She  imagined  the  tragedy  to  herself  as  she 
spoke,  and  her  voice  was  full  of  wistful  despair. 

"Get  her  a  hot  drink."  Saltire,  flinging  the  com- 
mand to  the  storekeeper,  spoke  for  the  first  time. 
"  I'll  round  up  the  boys  and  get  lanterns  for  a  search." 

In  a  few  moments  there  was  a  flicker  of  lanterns 
without,  and  the  murmur  of  voices. 


76  Blue  Aloes 

"Come  along,  Niekerk!"  commanded  Saltire,  arid 
the  storekeeper  began  to  put  his  lights  out.  "  McNeil, 
you  take  Miss  Chaine  back  to  the  farm." 

"No,  no;  I  must  come,  too!"  she  cried. 

"Impossible,"  he  said  curtly.  "You  will  only  be  a 
hindrance." 

"Then  I  will  go  home  alone,"  she  said  quietly,  "and 
free  Mr.  McNeil  to  accompany  you." 

"Very  well — if  you  think  you  can  find  your  way. 
Here  is  a  lantern." 

She  took  it  and  went  her  way  while  they  went  theirs. 
Long  before  she  reached  the  garden  round  the  house, 
the  lantern  in  her  unskilful  hands  had  gone  out  and 
she  was  groping  by  instinct. 

All  the  weariness  and  strain  of  the  day  had  suddenly 
descended  upon  her  in  a  cloud.  She  knew  she  was 
near  the  end  of  her  tether.  This  life  at  Blue  Aloes  was 
too  much  for  her,  after  all;  she  must  give  it  best  at  last; 
it  was  dominating  her,  driving  her  like  a  leaf  before 
the  wind.  These  were  her  thoughts  as  she  crept 
wearily  through  the  garden,  but  suddenly  she  heard 
voices  and  was  galvanized  into  hope,  tinged  with  fear. 
Perhaps  Roddy  was  found!  Perhaps  her  terror  and 
suffering  had  been  unnecessary.  She  listened  for  a 
moment,  then  located  the  speakers  close  to  her  in  the 
stoep. 

"  Dick,"  a  voice  she  knew  was  saying,  "  I  am  sick  of 
it.  Bernard  may  die  down  in  East  London,  but  we 
shall  never  get  rid  of  the  boy  while  that  English 
Jezebel  is  here.  And  she  knows  too  much  now.  We 
had  better  go.  Blue  Aloes  will  never  be  ours  to  sell 
and  go  back  to  our  own  dear  island.  Everything  has 
gone  wrong." 

"Nonsense,    Issa.     You   are   too  impatient.     Van 


Blue  Aloes  77 

Cannan  will  never  come  back.  He  is  too  full  of  anti- 
mony. As  for  Roddy,  poor  kid,  he  is  probably 
drowned  in  one  of  the  kloofs  and  speeding  for  the  river 
by  now — just  the  sort  of  adventure  his  queer  little 
mind  would  embark  on.  No  one  can  blame  us  for 
that,  at  least.  You  are  far  too  easily  discouraged,  my 
darling.  Wait  till  the  morning."  The  voice  was  the 
soft,  sonorous  voice  of  Saxby,  and  a  lightning  flash 
revealed  to  the  girl  cowering  among  the  trees  that  it 
was  he  who  held  Isabel  van  Cannan  in  his  arms. 

There  were  two  "Dicks"  at  Blue  Aloes,  and  Chris- 
tine, not  knowing  it,  had  been  guilty  of  a  grave  in- 
justice to  Richard  Saltire!  Aghast  as  she  was  by  the 
revelation,  all  her  love  and  faith  came  tingling  back 
in  a  sweet,  overwhelming  flood.  For  a  moment  or 
two  she  forgot  Roddy,  forgot  where  she  was,  forgot  all 
the  world  but  Saltire,  and  her  attention  was  with- 
drawn from  the  pair  in  the  stoep — indeed,  she  had  no 
desire  to  hear  their  words,  now  that  she  was  sure  they 
knew  no  more  of  the  boy's  whereabouts  than  she  her- 
self. But  the  muffled  clang  of  the  bar  across  the  front 
door  broke  through  her  .thoughts,  and  she  became 
aware  that  Saxby  had  left  and  Mrs.  van  Cannan  gone 
in.  She  was  alone  in  the  gaunt  darkness,  barred  out, 
and  with  no  means  of  getting  into  the  house;  all  other 
doors  were  locked,  as  well  she  knew,  and  all  shutters 
firmly  bolted,  including  those  of  the  nursery.  How- 
ever, the  fact  did  not  worry  her  greatly,  for  the  thought 
of  being  snug  and  safe  while  poor  Roddy  roamed 
somewhere  in  the  blackness  had  no  appeal  for  her. 
Out  here,  she  seemed,  somehow,  nearer  to  him,  and 
to  the  man  whom  she  now  knew  she  had  deeply 
wronged.  Lanterns,  twinkling  like  will-o'-the-wisps 
in  every  direction,  told  of  the  search  going  forward, 


78  Blue  Aloes 

and  she  determined  to  stay  in  the  summer-house  and 
wait  for  what  news  might  come.  It  was  very  obscure 
there,  and  she  knew  not  what  loathly  insects  might  be 
crawling  on  the  seats  and  table,  but,  at  any  rate,  it 
was  shelter  from  the  rain,  which  now  again  began  to 
fall  heavily. 

It  seemed  to  her  hours  that  she  sat  there  while  the 
storm  swept  round  her  and  the  rushing  of  many  waters 
filled  her  ears.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  less  than 
half  an  hour  before  she  determined  that  inactivity 
was  something  not  to  be  borne  another  moment  and 
that  she  must  return  and  join  in  the  search  for  Roddy. 
So  out  she  stumbled  across  the  veld  again,  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  lanterns,  evading  as  best  she  could  the 
prickly-pear  bushes,  stubbing  her  feet  against  rocks 
and  boschies,  drenched  and  driven  by  the  storm.  It 
was  old  Andrew  McNeil  whom  she  found  first,  and 
he  seemed  an  angel  from  heaven  after  the  vile  and 
menacing  loneliness,  although  he  was  but  ill  pleased 
to  see  her. 

"You  should  be  in  your  bed,  lassie,"  he  muttered. 
"The  poor  bairn  will  never  be  found  this  night. 
We've  searched  everywhere.  There's  nothing  left 
but  the  water." 

"Oh, don't  say  that!"  she  cried  woefully,  and  peered, 
fascinated,  at  the  boiling  torrent  rushing  down  a  kloof 
that  but  yesterday  was  an  innocent  gully  they  had 
crossed  in  their  walks,  in  some  places  so  narrow  as  to 
allow  a  jump  from  bank  to  bank.  Now  it  was  a  tur- 
bulent flood  of  yellow  water,  spreading  far  beyond  its 
banks  and  roaring  with  a  rage  unappeasable.  While 
they  stood  there,  staring,  Saltire  came  up. 

"You,  Miss  Chaine!  I  thought  I  asked  you  to 
return  to  the  farm."  His  tones  were  frigid,  but  his 


Blue  Aloes  79 

eyes  compassionate.  No  one  with  any  humanity 
could  have  failed  to  be  touched  by  the  forlorn  girl, 
pale  and  lovely  in  the  dim  light. 

"  I  had  to  come.     I  could  not  stay  inert  any  longer." 

"We  have  searched  every  inch  of  the  land  inside  the 
aloes,"  he  said.  "  He  has  either  fallen  into  one  of  the 
streams  or  got  out  beyond  the  hedge  into  the  open 
veld — which  seems  impossible,  somehow.  At  any 
rate,  we  can  do  no  more  until  it  is  light."  He  dis- 
missed the  natives  with  a  brief:  "Get  home,  boys. 
Hamba  lalla  !"  then  turned  to  McNeil.  "Take  Miss 
Chaine's  other  arm,  Mac;  we  must  see  for  ourselves 
that  she  goes  indoors." 

She  made  some  sound  of  remonstrance,  but  he  paid 
no  attention,  simply  taking  her  arm,  half  leading,  half 
supporting  her.  There  was  a  long  way  to  go.  They 
walked  awhile  in  a  silence  that  had  hopelessness  in  it; 
then  Christine  asked : 

"  Did  you  search  every  outhouse  and  barn?" 

"Every  one,  and  the  cemetery,  too,"  answered 
Saltire.  "There's  not  a  place  inside  or  out  of  the 
farm-buildings  we  haven't  been  over — except  Saxby's 
bungalow,  and  he's  hardly  likely  to  be  there." 

"He  was  there  this  afternoon,"  said  Christine 
slowly.  It  seemed  to  her  time  to  let  them  into  the 
truth. 

"What!" 

Both  men  halted  in  amazement.  Such  a  thing  as 
any  one  but  Mrs.  van  Cannan  going  to  Saxby's  was 
unknown.  Briefly  she  recounted  the  incidents  of  the 
afternoon.  The  men's  verdict  was  the  same  as  hers 
had  been. 

"Atrocious!" 

"Infamous!    After   that,   we   will   certainly  visit 


8o  Blue  Aloes 

Saxby's,"  decided  Saltire.  "But,  first,  Miss  Chaine 
must  go  home." 

"No,  no;  let  me  come,"  she  begged.  "  It  is  not  far. 
I  must  know." 

So,  in  the  end,  she  got  her  way,  and  they  all  ap- 
proached the  bungalow  together.  1 1  was  in  utter  dark- 
ness, and  the  men  had  to  rap  loud  and  long  before  any 
response  came  from  within.  At  last  Saxby's  voice 
was  heard  inquiring  who  the  deuce,  and  what  the 
deuce,  etc.,  etc.,  at  that  time  of  the  night — followed 
by  his  appearance  in  the  doorway  with  a  candle. 

"We  want  to  come  in  and  look  for  Roddy,"  said 
Saltire  briefly,  and,  without  further  ado,  pushed  the 
burly  man  aside  and  entered,  followed  by  McNeil. 
Christine,  too,  entered,  and  sat  down  inside  the  door. 
She  was  very  exhausted.  Saxby  appeared  too  flabber- 
gasted to  move  for  a  moment.  Then  he  remonstrated 
with  considerable  heat. 

"What  do  you  mean  by  this?  You  don't  seem  to 
know  that  you  are  in  my  house!" 

But  the  other  two  had  already  passed  through  the 
empty  sitting-room  to  the  one  beyond,  and  were 
casting  lantern-gleams  from  side  to  side,  examining 
everything. 

"You  must  be  crazy  to  think  the  boy  is  here," 
Saxby  blustered,  as  they  re-emerged.  They  paid  not 
the  slightest  attention  to  him,  but  continued  their 
search  into  the  kitchen,  the  only  other  room  of  the 
house. 

"No,"  said  Saltire,  very  quietly,  as  he  came  back 
into  the  room  and  set  the  light  on  the  table;  "the  boy 
is  not  here.  But  where  is  Mrs.  Saxby?" 

Saxby's  face  had  grown  rather  pallid,  but  his  jaw 
was  set  in  a  dogged  fashion. 


Blue  Aloes  81 

"That  is  my  business,"  he  said  harshly. 

It  was  Saltire  whose  face  and  manner  had  become 
subtly  agreeable. 

"Oh,  no,  Saxby;  it  is  all  of  our  business  at  present. 
What  I  find  so  strange  is  that  nowhere  in  the  house  is 
there  any  sign  or  token  that  a  woman  lives  here,  or 
has  ever  lived  here.  It  seems  to  me  that  needs  a 
little  explaining." 

"You'll  get  no  explanation  from  me,"  was  the  curt 
answer. 

"  I  think  you  had  better  tell  us  something  about  it," 
said  Saltire  pleasantly.  He  held  the  lantern  high, 
and  it  lighted  up  a  shelf  upon  which  stood  some  cu- 
rious glass  jars  with  perforated  stoppers.  "  I  see  you 
have  a  fine  collection  of  live  tarantulas  and  scorpions. 
I  remember  now  I  have  often  seen  you  groping  among 
the  aloes.  Curious  hobby!" 

"Get  out  of  my  house!"  said  Saxby,  with  sudden 
rage. 

"And  is  the  snake  still  in  the  box?"  asked  Saltire, 
approaching  the  table  where  the  cardboard  box  still 
occupied  its  central  position,  with  the  heavy  iron  on 
top  of  it. 

"Don't  touch  it,  for  God's  sake!"  shouted  Saxby, 
lunging  forward  to  stop  him,  but  the  deed  was  already 
done,  though  Saltire  himself  was  unprepared  for  what 
followed  on  his  lifting  the  iron.  The  lid  flew  up,  and, 
with  a  soft  hiss,  something  slim  and  swift  as  a  black 
arrow  darted  across  the  air,  seemed  to  kiss  Saxby  in 
passing,  and  was  gone  through  the  open  door  into  the 
night. 

The  big  man  made  a  strange  sound  and  put  his  hand 
to  his  throat.  He  swayed  a  little,  and  then  sank  upon 
a  long  cane  lounge.  Christine  noticed  that  his  eyes 


82  Blue  Aloes 

rolled  with  the  same  curious  evolution  as  the  eyes  of 
Mrs.  van  Cannan  had  performed  that  afternoon.  It 
was  as  though  they  turned  in  his  head  for  a  moment, 
showing  nothing  but  the  white  eyeball.  She  wondered 
why  the  other  men  rushed  to  the  sideboard  and  opened 
a  brandy-bottle,  and  while  she  stayed,  wondering, 
Saxby  spoke  softly,  looking  at  her  with  his  beautiful, 
melancholy  brown  eyes. 

"I  shall  be  dead  in  half  an  hour.  Fetch  Isabel. 
Let  me  see  her  face  before  I  die. " 

She  knew  him  for  a  bad  man,  false  friend,  one  who 
could  be  cruel  to  a  little  child;  yet  it  seemed  he  could 
love  well.  That  was  something.  She  found  herself 
running  through  the  darkness  as  she  had  never  run  in 
her  life,  to  do  the  last  behest  of  Richard  Saxby. 

When  she  and  Isabel  van  Cannan  returned,  they 
found  him  almost  gone.  Sal  tire  and  McNeil  had 
worked  over  him  until  the  sweat  dripped  from  their 
faces,  but  he  who  has  been  kissed  by  the  black  mamba, 
deadliest  of  snakes,  is  lost  beyond  all  human  effort. 
The  light  was  fast  fading  from  his  face,  but,  for  a 
moment,  a  spurt  of  life  leaped  in  his  eyes.  He  held 
out  his  arms  to  the  woman,  and  she  fell  weeping  into 
them.  Christine  turned  away  and  stared  out  at  the 
darkness.  Saltire  had  been  writing;  a  sheet  of  paper 
upon  which  the  ink  was  still  wet  lay  upon  the  table, 
and  in  his  hand  he  held  a  packet  of  letters. 

"I  have  told  everything,  Issa,"  muttered  the  dying 
man.  "I  had  to  clean  my  soul  of  it." 

She  recoiled  fiercely  from  him. 

"'Told  everything?'"  she  repeated,  and  her  face 
blanched  with  fury  and  despair.  It  seemed  as  if  she 
would  have  struck  him  across  the  lips,  but  McNeil 
intervened. 


Blue  Aloes  83 

"  Have  reverence  for  a  passing  soul,  woman,"  said 
he  sternly.  "  Black  as  his  crimes  are,  yours  are  blacker, 
I'm  thinking.  He  was  only  the  tool  of  the  woman  he 
loved — his  lawful  wife." 

"You  said  that?"  she  raved.  But  Saxby  was 
beyond  recriminations.  That  dark  soul  had  passed  to 
its  own  place.  She  turned  again  to  the  others,  foam- 
ing like  a  creature  trapped. 

"  It  is  all  lies,  lies!" — then  fell  silent,  her  eyes  sealed 
to  the  newly  written  paper  on  the  table  under  Saltire' s 
hand.  At  last,  she  said  quietly:  "I  must,  however, 
insist  upon  knowing  what  he  has  said  about  me. 
What  is  written  on  that  paper,  Mr.  Saltire?" 

"  If  you  insist,  I  will  read  it, "  he  answered.  "Though 
it  is  scarcely  in  my  province  to  do  so." 

"It  is  only  fair  that  I  should  hear,"  she  said,  with 
great  calmness.  And  Saltire  read  out  the  terse 
phrases  that  bore  upon  them  the  stamp  of  Death's 
hurrying  hand. 

"I  am  a  native  of  the  island  Z in  the  West 

Indies.  Isabel  Saxby,  known  as  van  Cannan,  is  my 
wife.  While  travelling  to  the  Cape  Colony  on  some 
business  of  mine,  she  met  van  Cannan  and  his  wife  and 
stayed  with  them  at  East  London.  When  she  did  not 

return  to  Z ,  I  came  to  look  for  her  and  found  that, 

Mrs.  van  Cannan  having  died,  she  had  bigamously 
married  the  widower  and  come  to  live  at  Blue  Aloes. 
I  loved  her,  and  could  not  bear  to  be  parted  from  her, 
so,  through  her  instrumentality,  I  came  here  as  man- 
ager. The  eldest  boy  was  drowned  before  my  arrival. 
The  youngest  died  six  months  later  of  a  bite  from  one  of 
my  specimen  tarantulas.  The  third  boy  is,  I  expect, 
drowned  tonight.  I  take  the  blame  of  all  these 


84  Blue  Aloes 

deaths  and  of  Bernard  van  Cannan's,  if  he  does  not 
return.  It  was  only  when  all  male  van  Cannans  were 
dead  that  Blue  Aloes  could  be  sold  for  a  large  sum 

enabling  us  to  return  to  Z .     We  would  have  taken 

the  little  girls  with  us. 

"  With  my  dying  breath,  I  take  full  blame  for  all 
on  my  shoulders.  No  one  is  guilty  but  I. 

"  [Signed.]     RICHARD  SAXBY." 

"Poor  fellow!"  said  the  listening  woman  gently. 
"  Poor  fellow  to  have  died  with  such  terrible  delusions 
torturing  him!"  She  passed  her  hands  over  her  eyes, 
wiping  away  her  tears  and  with  them  every  last  trace 
of  violence  and  anger.  Subtly  her  face  had  changed 
back  to  the  babylike,  laughing,  sleepy  face  they  all 
knew  so  well — the  face  that  had  held  the  dead  man  in 
thrall  and  made  Bernard  van  Cannan  forget  the 
mother  of  his  children. 

"You  will  please  give  me  that  paper,  Mr.  Saltire," 
she  pleaded,  "and  you  will  please  all  of  you  forget  the 
ravings  of  poor  Dick  Saxby.  It  is  true  that  I  knew 
him  in  the  past,  and  that  he  followed  me  here,  but  the 
rest,  as  you  must  realize,  are  simply  hallucinations  of  a 
poisoned  brain." 

Andrew  McNeil's  dour  face  had  grown  bewildered, 
but  softened.  Christine — if  she  had  not  seen  a  little 
too  much,  if  she  had  not  known  that  lovely  golden 
hair  hanging  in  rich  plaits  about  the  woman's  shoul- 
ders covered  the  crisped  head  of  a  white  negress,  if 
she  had  not  overheard  impassioned  words  at  midnight, 
if  she  had  not  loved  Roddy  so  well — might  have  been 
beguiled.  But  there  was  one  person  upon  whom  the 
artist's  wiles  were  wasted. 

"I'm  afraid  it  can't  be  done,  Mrs.  Saxby,"  said 


Blue  Aloes  85 

Saltire  gravely.  "The  testimony  of  a  dying  man  is 
sacred — and  Saxby's  mind  was  perfectly  clear." 

"  How  could  it  have  been  ?  And  do  not  call  me 
'Mrs.  Saxby, '  please."  She  still  spoke  patiently,  but 
a  smouldering  fire  began  to  kindle  in  her  eyes. 

"You  see,"  he  continued,  exhibiting  the  packet  of 
letters  to  which  he  now  added  the  testimony,  "  I  have 
here  the  certificate  of  your  marriage  to  Saxby  six 
years  ago  in  the  West  Indies — and  also  proof  of  the 
possession  by  you  of  a  large  amount  of  antimony. 
You  may,  of  course,  be  able  to  explain  away  these 
things,  as  well  as  Saxby's  testimony,  but  you  will 
understand  that  I  cannot  oblige  you  by  handing  them 
over."  A  silence  fell,  in  which  only  her  rapid  breath- 
ing could  be  heard.  "There  is  one  thing,  however, 
you  can  do,  that  will  perhaps  help  a  little.  Tell  us 
where  Roddy  is — if  you  know." 

The  smouldering  fires  leaped  to  flame.  She  glared  at 
him  like  a  tigress. 

"Oh,  you,  and  your  Roddys!"  ^he  cried  savagely. 
"  If  I  knew  where  he  was,  I  would  kill  him!  I  would  kill 
any  one  I  could  who  stood  in  my  way — do  you  under- 
stand? That  is  how  we  are  made  in  my  land.  Oh,  that 
I  ever  left  it,  to  come  to  this  vile  and  barren  desert!" 

She  gave  one  swift,  terrible  look  at  the  dead  man 
and  swept  from  the  house.  That  was  the  last  time 
any  one  of  them  ever  saw  her. 

When,  a  little  later,  Saltire,  McNeil,  and  Christine 
came  out  of  the  dead  man's  house  and  left  him  to  his 
long  silence,  the  black  wings  of  night  were  lifted,  the 
storm  was  past,  and  a  rose-red  dawn  veiled  in  silver 
bedecked  the  sky.  The  hills  were  tender  with  pearl 
and  azure.  The  earth  smelled  sweet  and  freshly 
washed.  A  flock  of  wild  duck  rose  from  the  dam  and 


86  Blue  Aloes 

went  streaking  across  the  horizon  like  in  a  Japanese 
etching.  All  the  land  was  full  of  dew  and  dreams. 
It  was  almost  impossible  to  despair  in  such  an  hour. 
Christine  felt  the  wings  of  hope  beating  in  her  breast, 
and  an  unaccountable  trust  in  the  goodness  of  God 
filled  her. 

"Joy  cometh  in  the  morning,"  she  said,  half  to  her- 
self, half  to  the  men  who  walked,  sombre  and  silent, 
beside  her,  and  the  shadow  of  a  smile  hovered  on  her 
lips.  They  looked  at  her  wonderingly.  The  night  of 
terror  had  taken  toll  of  her,  and  she  was  pale  as  the 
last  star  before  dawn.  Yet  her  white  beauty  framed 
in  hanging  hair  shone  like  some  rare  thing  that  had 
passed  through  fire  and  come  out  unscathed  and  puri- 
fied in  the  passing.  "  II  faut  souffrir  pour  etre  belle" 
is  a  frivolous  French  saying,  but,  like  many  frivolous 
phrases,  has  its  basic  roots  in  the  truth.  It  was  true 
enough  of  Christine  Chaine  in  that  hour.  She  had 
suffered  and  was  beautiful.  Dour  old  Andrew  McNeil 
gave  a  sigh  for  the  years  of  life  that  lay  behind  him, 
and  a  glance  at  the  face  of  the  other  man;  then,  like  a 
wise  being,  he  said, 

"Well,  I'll  be  going  on  down." 

So  Christine  and  Dick  Saltire  walked  alone. 

"Let  us  hurry,"  she  said  suddenly,  quickening  her 
pace.  "  I  feel  as  though  something  may  have  hap- 
pened." 

But  all  was  silent  at  the  farm.  It  was  still  too  early 
even  for  the  servants  to  be  astir,  and  the  big  front  door 
stood  open  as  she  and  the  other  woman  had  left  it 
an  hour  or  so  agone. 

She  left  Saltire  in  the  stoep  and  went  within.  The 
little  girls  slept  peacefully,  ignorant  of  the  absence  of 
their  brother. 


Blue  Aloes  87 

All  seemed  unchanged,  yet  Christine's  searching 
eye  found  one  thing  that  was  unusual — a  twist  of 
paper  stuck  through  the  slats  of  the  shutter.  In  a 
moment,  she  had  it  untwisted  and  was  reading  the 
words  printed  in  ungainly  letters  upon  it. 

"Do  not  worry.  Roddy  quite  safe.  Will  come 
back  when  his  father  returns." 

"  I  knew, "  she  whispered  to  herself,  "  I  knew  that 
joy  cometh."  She  looked  in  the  mirror  and  was 
ashamed  of  the  disarray  she  saw  there,  yet  thought 
that,  even  so,  a  man  who  loved  her  might  perhaps  find 
her  fair.  As  a  last  thought,  she  took  Roddy's  two 
yellow  roses  and  stuck  them  in  the  bosom  of  her  gown. 
Then  she  went  back  to  the  stoep  and,  showing  Saltire 
the  paper,  told  him  the  story  of  the  whispering  thing 
that  had  sighed  so  often  for  Roddy's  safety  outside 
her  window. 

"  I  feel  sure,  somehow,  that,  after  all,  he  is  safe,  and 
with  that  friend  who  knew  more  than  we  did,  who 
knew  all  the  tragedy  of  the  mother  and  the  other  two 
little  sons,  and  feared  for  Roddy  from  the  first." 

Saltire  made  no  answer,  for  he  was  looking  at  the 
roses  and  then  into  her  eyes;  and  when  she  tried  to 
return  the  look,  the  weight  of  the  little  stones  was  on 
her  lids  again,  and  her  lips  a-quiver.  But  he  held  her 
against  his  heart  close,  close — crushing  the  yellow 
roses,  kissing  the  little  stones  from  her  lids  and  the 
quiver  from  her  lips.  Then  he  left  her  swiftly;  for  it 
is  a  sweet  and  terrible  thing  to  kiss  the  lips  and  crush 
the  roses  and  go,  and  a  better  thing  to  hasten  the  hour 
when  one  may  kiss  the  lips  and  crush  the  roses — and 
stay. 

So  she  did  not  see  him  again  for  three  days.  But 
from  the  faithful  McNeil  she  heard  that  the  flooded 


88  Blue  Aloes 

river  had  been  forded  and  a  telegram  sent  recalling 
Bernard  van  Cannan,  that  a  search  had  been  in- 
stituted for  the  mistress  of  Blue  Aloes,  who  was  miss- 
ing, that  a  party  of  farmers  had  been  collected  to  "  sit" 
upon  the  body  of  Richard  Saxby,  and  had  pronounced 
him  most  regrettably  dead  from  the  bite  of  a  black 
mamba.  Whereafter  he  was  buried  in  a  quiet  spot 
near  the  hedge  of  blue  aloes,  from  which  he  had  col- 
lected so  many  rare  specimens  of  poisonous  reptiles 
and  insects. 

On  the  third  day,  one  of  the  kloofs  on  the  farm  gave 
up  a  wig  of  golden  hair,  all  muddy  and  weed-entangled. 
The  natives  hung  it  on  a  bush  to  dry,  and  there  was 
much  gossip  among  them  that  day,  hastily  hushed 
when  any  European  person  came  by. 

At  nine  o'clock  the  same  evening,  Roddy  was 
found  peacefully  sleeping  in  the  bed  with  Meekie 
carefully  adjusting  the  mosquito-curtains  over  him 
as  though  he  had  never  been  missing.  1  n  the  morning, 
he  told  Christine  he  had  had  an  awfully  funny  dream. 

"  I  dreamed  I  was  with  my  old  'nannie'  again — you 
know — Sophy.  She  was  all  covered  up,  and  I  could 
only  see  her  eyes  looking  through  holes  in  a  white 
thing.  She  was  living  all  by  herself  in  a  hut.  I 
didn't  stay  with  her,  but  with  another  old  woman,  but 
she  used  to  come  and  see  me  every  day,  and  sometimes 
Meekie  used  to  come,  too,  and  Klaas  and  Jacoop  and 
all  the  farm-boys  to  talk  to  me.  The  old  woman 
kept  giving  me  some  tea  made  of  herbs  that  made  me 
feel  very  quiet  and  happy,  and  Sophy  told  me  I  should 
come  back  soon  to  the  farm  when  daddy  was  home 
again.  She  was  always  covered  up  with  white  clothes, 
and  I  could  only  see  her  eyes,  and  1  love  Sophy  very 
much,  Miss  Chaine,  but  I  can't  say  she  smelled  very 


Blue  Aloes  89 

nice  in  my  dream.  1 1  was  a  very  funny  dream,  though, 
and  lasted  an  awful  long  time." 

It  had  indeed  lasted  three  days,  but  Roddy  would 
never  know  that,  during  those  three  days,  he  had  been 
incarcerated  in  the  Kafir  kraal  on  the  hillside,  outside 
the  aloe  hedge.  It  was  only  when  the  golden  wig  was 
washed  up  from  the  river  that  the  mysterious  kraal 
people,  silent  and  impassive,  seemingly  ignorant  of  all 
but  their  duties,  yet  knowing  every  single  thing  that 
passed  at  the  farm,  even  down  to  the  use  of  the 
false  hair  (though  Bernard  van  Cannan  himself  had 
never  suspected  this),  gave  him  back  to  those  who 
awaited. 

If  Dick  Sal  tire  had  not  so  thoroughly  understood 
the  native  mind  and  inspired  the  confidence  of  his 
boys,  the  truth  might  never  have  been  known.  As  it 
was,  it  lay  in  his  power  to  relate  to  those  whom  it 
concerned  that  a  certain  woman  named  Sophy  Bron- 
jon,  formerly  nurse  to  the  van  Cannans,  and  sent 
away  by  them  to  be  conveyed  to  Robin  Island  because 
she  had  developed  leprosy,  had  never  left  the  precincts 
of  the  farm,  but  stayed  there,  brooding  over  the  little 
ones  she  loved.  The  kraal  people  to  whom  (though 
a  mission-educated  woman)  she  belonged  had  hidden 
and  sheltered  her.  Through  Meekie's  instrumental- 
ity, she  undoubtedly  knew  all  that  passed  on  the  farm, 
and  as  surely  as  she  had  noted  the  fate  of  the  van 
Cannan  heirs,  she  recognized  Christine  as  an  ally  and 
friend,  and  had  warned  her  as  best  she  could  of  the 
dangers  that  beset  Roddy.  It  was  she  who  had  sighed 
and  whispered  through  the  closed  shutters,  frightening 
Christine  at  first,  but  in  the  end  engendering  trust, 
and  it  was  she  who,  on  hearing  of  the  narrow  escape 
of  Roddy  from  the  tarantula,  had  made  up  her  mind  to 


90  Blue  Aloes 

spirit  him,  with  the  aid  of  Meekie  and  the  storm,  from 
the  farm  and  its  dangers  until  the  return  of  his  father. 

With  the  disappearance  of  Mrs.  van  Cannan  and  the 
death  of  Saxby,  the  menace  was  removed  and  the 
child  brought  back  as  silently  as  he  had  been  taken 
away.  Even  he  knew  no  more  than  that  he  had 
dreamed  a  strange  dream. 

Saltire  went  to  meet  Bernard  van  Cannan  at  Cra- 
dock,  taking  with  him  the  papers  left  in  his  care  by 
Richard  Saxby.  There  was  not  so  much  to  explain 
to  the  owner  of  Blue  Aloes,  as  might  have  been  ex- 
pected. The  doctor  who  treated  him  for  neuritis  and 
found  him  dying  of  slow  poisoning  by  antimony  had 
lifted  the  scales  from  his  eyes,  and  a  little  clear  thought, 
away  from  the  spell  of  the  woman  known  as  Isabel  van 
Cannan,  had  done  much  to  show  him  that  the  sequence 
of  tragedies  in  his  home  was  due  to  something  more 
than  the  callousness  of  fate.  Thus  he  was,  in  some 
measure,  prepared  for  Saxby's  confession,  though  not 
for  the  fact  that  the  woman  he  had  adored  to  fanati- 
cism had  never  been  his  wife,  or  more  to  him  than 
might  have  been  an  adder  gathered  from  his  own  aloe 
hedge,  with  all  the  traits  and  attributes  peculiar  to 
adders  who  are  gathered  to  the  bosom  and  warmed 
there. 

He  came  back  to  a  home  from  which  the  spell  of  the 
golden,  laughing  woman  was  lifted.  The  evil  menace 
that  had  hung  for  so  long  over  the  old  farm  was  lifted 
for  ever.  Part  was  buried  by  the  blue-aloe  hedge;  part 
of  it,  plucked  from  the  dregs  of  an  ebbing  river,  lay 
in  a  far  grave  with  no  mark  on  it  but  the  plain  words, 
"  Isabel  Saxby."  While  the  sad  watcher  in  the  kraal 
had  no  more  need  to  walk  and  whisper  warnings  by 
night. 


Blue  Aloes  91 

It  was  the  children  who  laughed  now  at  Blue  Aloes, 
merry  and  free  as  elves  in  a  wood.  There  was  a  glow 
came  out  of  Christine  Chaine  that  communicated  itself 
to  all.  She  and  Saltire  were  to  be  married  as  soon  as  a 
Quentin  aunt,  who  was  on  her  way,  had  settled  down 
comfortably  with  the  children.  Afterward,  Roddy 
would  live  with  them  at  the  Cape  until  his  schooldays 
were  over.  In  the  meantime,  they  walked  in  a  garden 
of  Eden,  for  the  rains  had  made  the  desert  bloom,  and 
life  offered  them  its  fairest  blossoms  with  both  hands. 


The  Leopard 

PART  I 

IT  was  nine  o'clock,  and  time  for  the  first  waltz  to 
strike  up.  The  wide,  empty  floor  of  the  Falcon  Hotel 
lounge  gleamed  with  a  waxen  glaze  under  the  brilliant 
lights,  and  the  dancers'  feet  were  tingling  to  begin. 
Michael  Walsh,  who  always  played  at  the  Wankelo 
dances,  sat  down  at  the  piano  and  struck  two  loud 
arresting  bars,  then  gently  caressed  from  the  keys 
the  crooning  melody  of  the  Wisteria  Waltz.  Two  by 
two,  the  dancers  drew  into  the  maze  of  music  and 
movement,  and  became  part  of  a  weaving  rhythmic, 
kaleidoscopic  picture. 

There  was  not  an  ill-looking  person  in  the  room. 
The  men  were  of  a  tanned,  hard-bitten,  adventurous 
brand;  the  women  were  nearly  all  pretty  or  attractive 
or  both,  and  mostly  young.  These  are  the  usual 
attributes  of  women  in  a  new  country  like  Rhodesia; 
for  men  do  not  take  ugly,  unattractive  women  to 
share  life  with  them  in  the  wilds,  and  girls  born  in  such 
places  have  a  gift  all  their  own  of  beauty  and  charm. 

Many  of  them  were  badly  dressed,  however,  for  that, 
too,  is  an  attribute  of  the  wilds,  where  women  mostly 
make  their  own  clothes,  unless  they  are  rich  enough 
to  get  frequent  parcels  from  England.  There  was 

93 


94  The  Leopard 

this  to  be  noted  about  the  gowns:  When  they  were 
new,  they  were  patchy  affairs,  made  up  at  home 
from  materials  bought  in  Rhodesian  shops;  but  when 
well  cut,  they  were  battered  and  worn.  Take,  for 
instance,  Mrs.  Lisle's  gown  of  pale-green  satin  and 
sequins.  She  had  been  an  actress  before  she  married 
Barton  Lisle  and  came  out  to  the  ups  and  downs  of 
a  mining  speculator's  life,  and  all  her  clothes  were 
rechauffees  of  the  toilettes  in  which  she  had  once 
dazzled  provincial  audiences.  Gay  Liscannon's  frock 
of  pale  rose-leaf  silk,  with  a  skirt  that  was  a  flurry  of 
delicious  little  frills  and  a  bodice  of  lace,  sewn  with 
little  paste  dew  drops  that  folded  around  her  fresh 
young  form  like  the  filmy  wings  of  a  butterfly,  had  Bond 
Street  stamped  all  over  it,  as  they  who  ran  might 
read;  but  it  had  not  been  paid  for,  although  it  was 
already  tumbling  into  little  tears  and  tatters.  For  Gay 
was  no  Penelope  to  sit  patiently  at  home  and  ply  the 
nimble  needle.  She  had  worn  it  to  six  dances  already, 
and  would  probably  wear  it  another  six  before  she  sum- 
moned up  the  nerve  to  present  her  father  with  the  bill. 
Berlie  Hallett  possessed  a  London  godmother  in 
the  shape  of  an  aunt  who  sent  her  an  occasional  frock, 
and  her  white-tulle-and-forget-me-nots  was  all  that  it 
should  have  been  except  that  it  had  turned  to  an  ashen 
creamy  hue,  possessed  a  long  tear  down  the  back  (un- 
skilfully concealed  by  a  ribbon  sash),  lacked  about  six 
yards  of  lace  (accidentally  ripped  off  the  flounces), 
and  was  minus  a  few  dozen  posies  of  forget-me-nots 
(now  in  the  possession  of  various  amorous  young  men). 
Berlie  no  more  than  her  friend  Gay  was  a  sit-by-the- 
fire-and-mend  creature.  They  were  real,  live,  out- 
of-door,  golfing,  hard-riding  girls,  full  of  spirits  and 
gaiety  and  joie  de  vivre. 


The  Leopard  95 

Berlie,  at  that  moment,  was  dancing  with  all  her 
soul  as  well  as  her  feet,  melted  in  the  arms  of  Johnny 
Doran,  a  rich  rancher  who  had  proposed  to  her  eight 
times  and  whom  she  intended  should  propose  another 
ten  before  she  finally  refused  him.  But  Gay,  the  best 
dancer  in  Rhodesia,  was  not  dancing.  Her  feet  were 
tingling,  and  the  music  was  in  her  brain  like  wine,  and 
her  heart  was  burning,  and  her  eyes,  though  not  turned 
that  way,  were  watching,  with  impatient  wrath,  the 
door  across  the  room.  But  with  her  lips  she  smiled  at 
the  little  group  of  clamouring,  protesting  men  about 
her,  and  gave  out  one  brief  statement. 

"  My  shoe  hurts  me." 

"Which  one?"  they  clamoured,  like  a  lot  of  school- 
boys. "And  why?  It's  the  same  pair  you  danced  to 
the  dawn  in  last  week — why  should  it  hurt  you  now? 
And  why  does  one  hurt  you?  Why  not  two?  Who 
will  bet  that  it  won't  stop  hurting  after  this  dance?" 
they  inquired  of  one  another,  "and  who  is  the  man  it  is 
hurting  for?" 

Gay  surveyed  them  dispassionately  with  her  misty, 
violet  eyes. 

"  Don't  be  silly,"  said  she  serenely;  "my  shoe  hurts." 

They  gave  her  up  as  hopeless  and  faded  away,  one 
by  one,  bent  on  finding  someone  to  finish  the  waltz 
with.  Men  out-numbered  girls  by  about  four  to  one 
in  Wankelo.  Only  Tryon  stayed,  lounging  against  the 
wall,  smiling  subtly  to  himself. 

"There's  Molly  Tring  just  coming  in,"  said  Gay 
to  him.  "  You'd  better  go  and  get  a  dance  from  her, 
Dick." 

"By  and  by,"  said  Tryon,  with  his  cryptic  smile. 
"  I'm  waiting  for  something." 

Even  as  he  spoke,  Gay  saw  across  the  room  the  face 


96  The  Leopard 

she  had  been  watching  for.  A  tall  man  had  come  into 
the  doorway  and  stood  casting  a  casual  but  compre- 
hensive eye  about  him.  He  was  not  in  evening  dress, 
but  wore  a  loose  grey  lounge  suit  of  rather  careless 
aspect,  and  his  short,  fairish,  curly  hair  was  ruffled 
as  though  he  had  been  running  his  fingers  through  it. 
Accompanying  him  was  a  small  black  dog  with  a  large 
stone  in  its  mouth,  which  came  into  the  ballroom  and 
sat  down.  Gay  gave  one  look  at  the  pair  of  them, 
and  the  colour  went  out  of  her  face.  There  was  more 
than  a  glint  of  passion  in  the  eyes  she  turned  to  Tyron, 
who  was  smiling  no  longer. 

"  I'll  finish  this  dance  with  you,  if  you  like, 
Dick." 

"My  shoe  hurts,"  said  Tryon. 

She  flung  away  from  him  in  a  rage  and  a  moment 
later,  was  lost  among  the  rest  of  the  dancers  in  the 
arms  of  one  Claude  Hayes,  a  man  not  too  proud  to  take 
the  goods  the  gods  offered,  even  if  they  were  short 
ratio.  Tryon  sauntered  over  to  the  doorway  ten- 
anted by  the  man  in  grey,  who  appeared  to  be  delight- 
fully impervious  to  the  fact  that  he  was  the  only 
person  on  the  scene  not  in  evening  dress. 

"Hello,  Tryon!''  said  he. 

"Hello,  Lundi!  Thought  you  meant  to  turn  up 
and  dance  tonight?" 

"Yes,  so  I  did,"  said  Lundi  Druro,  looking  at  Tryon 
with  the  blithe  and  friendly  smile  that  made  all  men 
like  him.  "But  I  forgot." 

"I  won't  ask  what  you  were  doing,  then,"  was 
Tryon's  dry  comment.  To  which  Druro  responded 
nothing.  He  was  one  of  those  who  did  before  the  sun 
and  moon  that  which  seemed  good  unto  him  to  do, 
with  a  sublime  indifference  to  comments.  Everyone 


The  Leopard  97 

knew  what  he  was  doing  when  he  "forgot,"  and  he 
didn't  care  if  they  did. 

"Lundi  meant  to  get  married,  but  he  forgot,"  was 
a  household  jest  in  Rhodesia,  founded  on  a  legend 
from  home  that,  at  a  certain  supper-party,  a  beautiful 
actress  had  inveigled  him  into  making  her  an  offer  of 
marriage,  and  the  ceremony  had  been  fixed  for  the 
following  day.  But,  though  bride  and  wedding-party 
turned  up  at  the  appointed  hour,  the  bridegroom  never 
materialized.  He  had  gone  straight  from  the  supper- 
party  at  the  Savoy  to  the  Green  Room  Club  and  fallen 
into  a  game  of  poker  that  lasted  throughout  the  night 
and  all  the  next  day,  with  the  result  that  all  memory 
of  the  proposed  wedding  had  faded  from  his  mind. 
The  lady,  very  much  injured  in  her  tenderest  feeling 
(professional  and  personal  vanity),  had  sued  him  for  a 
large  sum  of  money,  which  he  had  paid  without  blink- 
ing and  returned  to  South  Africa,  heart-free,  to  make 
some  more. 

"  Did  you  pull  in  the  pot?"  asked  Tryon,  who  was  a 
poker  player  himself. 

"No,"  said  Druro  regretfully;  "hadn't  time.  I  left 
the  game  and  came  away  as  soon  as  I  remembered  this 
blessed  dance." 

Just  then  the  waltz  came  to  an  end,  its  last  notes 
trailing  off  into  nothingness  and  blowing  away  like  a 
handful  of  leaves  on  a  breeze.  The  kaleidoscopic 
patterns  sorted  themselves  and  turned  into  a  circle  of 
perambulating  couples,  and  Gay  and  her  partner 
passed  the  two  men  in  the  doorway. 

"Hi!  I  want  to  speak  to  you,"  said  Druro,  whose 
manners  were  unique,  making  an  imperious  sign  at 
Gay.  She  looked  at  him  with  eyes  like  frozen  violets 
and  walked  on.  Druro,  looking  after  her,  observed 


98  The  Leopard 

that  she  and  her  partner  passed  out  of  a  door  leading 
to  the  east  veranda. 

"H'm!"  said  he,  reflective  but  unperturbed.  Then 
he  turned  to  Tryon.  "Go  and  get  Hayes  away  from 
her,  Tryon." 

"That's  a  nice  job!"  commented  Tryon. 

"Go  on,  old  man!"  said  Druro,  kindly  but  firmly. 
"Tell  him  there's  a  man  in  the  bar  wants  to  see  him  on 
a  matter  of  life  and  death.  He'll  thank  you  for  it 
afterward." 

Tryon  went  grumbling  through  the  ballroom,  and 
Druro  stepped  back  out  of  the  front  hall  into  the 
street  and  made  a  circuit  of  the  hotel.  By  the  time 
he  had  reached  the  east  veranda,  Tryon  was  gently 
leading  away  the  unresisting  Hayes,  and  a  rose-leaf 
shoe,  visible  between  two  pots  of  giant  croton,  guided 
the  stalker  to  his  prey.  He  sat  down  on  a  seat  beside 
her. 

"  Did  you  mean  it  when  you  cut  me  in  that  brutal 
manner  just  now — or  was  it  an  accident?"  he  asked 
reproachfully. 

Gay  did  not  answer  or  stir.     His  manner  changed. 

"Gay,  1  am  most  awfully  sorry  and  ashamed  of  my- 
self. Will  you  forgive  me?" 

The  girl  sat  up  straight  in  her  chair  at  that,  and 
looked  at  him.  She  was  too  generous  to  ignore  a 
frank  appeal  for  pardon,  but  she  had  that  within  which 
demanded  propitiation. 

"Have  you  any  explanation  to  offer?"  she  asked, 
and  he  answered : 

"I  clean  forgot  all  about  it." 

She  stared  at  him  in  exasperation  and  scorn,  her 
eyes  sparkling  with  anger,  and  he  returned  her  gaze 
with  his  frank  and  fearless  smile.  " M'Scblcga,"  the 


The  Leopard  99 

natives  called  him — "the  man  who  always  laughs 
whether  good  or  bad  comes  to  him." 

Gay  at  last  withdrew  her  face  into  the  shadows 
where  he  could  no  longer  see  it  clearly. 

"  1  suppose  you  think  that  disappointing  a  girl  and 
making  her  lose  a  dance  is  nothing,"  she  said  quietly. 

"You  misjudge  me.  If  I  had  thought  about  it  at 
all,  it  would  never  have  happened.  But  the  whole 
thing  went  clean  out  of  my  mind  until  it  was  too  late 
to  dress  and  get  down  here  in  time.  Do  you  think  I 
would  purposley  miss  such  a  keen  pleasure  as  it  is  to 
dance  with  you — and  the  honour  of  having  your  first 
waltz  given  me?  " 

She  did  not  answer,  but  slowly  her  anger  began  to 
fade. 

"  I  came  down  here  as  hard  as  I  could  belt,  as  soon 
as  I  remembered." 

More  anger  melted  away. 

"  I  haven't  even  had  my  dinner  yet." 

Gay  sprang  up  like  a  whirlwind. 

"Oh,  how  detestable  you  are,"  she  said,  in  a  low, 
furious  voice,  "with  your  dinner  and  your  wretched 
excuses!  Do  you  think  1  don't  know  what  you  were 
doing  that  you  forgot?  Everyone  knows  what  you  are 
doing  when  you  forget  your  engagements — playing 
poker  and  drinking  with  a  lot  of  low  gambling  men, 
wasting  your  money  and  your  time  and  all  that  is 
fine  in  you!" 

Druro  had  stood  up,  too,  and  faced  her  with  the 
first  bolt  she  flung.  They  were  quite  alone,  for 
the  trilling  notes  of  a  two-step  had  swiftly  emptied  the 
veranda.  He  still  wore  a  smile  on  his  lips,  but  its 
singularly  heart-warming  quality  had  gone  from  it. 
His  red-brown  face  had  grown  a  shade  less  red-brown, 


ioo  The  Leopard 

and  his  grey,  whimsical,  good-natured  eyes  looked 
suddenly  hard  as  rock.  He  addressed  her  as  if  she 
were  someone  he  had  never  met  before. 

"You  are  very  plain-spoken!" 

"You  need  a  little  plain-speaking,"  she  said 
passionately. 

"  It  is  a  pity  to  waste  wit  and  wisdom  on  an  object 
so  unworthy.  Obviously,  I  am  past  reforming" — his 
smile  had  a  mocking  turn  to  it  now — "even  if  I  wanted 
to  be  reformed." 

"Of  course  you  don't  want  to  be  reformed,"  said 
Gay.  "No  drunkard  and  gambler  ever  does." 

Her  voice  was  hard,  but  there  was  a  pain  in  her  heart 
like  the  twist  of  a  knife  there.  She  pressed  her  hand 
among  the  laces  of  her  dress,  and  all  the  little  paste 
jewels  twinkled.  Druro  noticed  them.  They  en- 
gaged his  attention,  even  while  he  was  swallowing 
down  her  words  like  a  bitter  dose  of  poison.  He  was 
deeply  offended.  She  spoke  to  him  as  if  he  were  some 
kind  of  a  pariah,  and  it  was  unpardonable.  If  she 
had  been  a  man,  he  would  have  known  what  to  do,  and 
have  done  it  quick.  But  what  could  be  done  with  a 
slip  of  a  girl  who  stood  there  with  a  folded  lace  butter- 
fly around  her  and  looked  like  a  passionate  tea- 
rose  twinkling  with  dewdrops?  Nothing,  except  just 
smile.  But  only  the  self-control  gained  in  many  a 
hard-won  and  ably  bluffed  game  of  life  (and  poker) 
enabled  him  to  do  it,  and  to  say,  with  great  gentleness: 

"  I'm  afraid  that  I  am  as  I  am.  You  must  take  me 
or  leave  me  at  that." 

"I'll  leave  you,  then,"  she  said  burningly,  and 
slipped  past  him.  At  the  door  of  the  ballroom  she 
looked  back  and  flung  him  a  last  word,  "  Until  you  are 
a  different  man  from  the  present  Lundi  Druro." 


The  Leopard  101 

Druro,  entirely  taken  aback  by  her  decisive  retort  and 
action,  stood  staring  long  after  she  had  disappeared. 

"Well,  by  the  living  something  or  other!"  he 
muttered  at  last,  and  walked  away  from  the  hotel, 
filled  with  wholesale  rage  and  indignation.  "The 
little  shrew!  Who  asked  her  to  take  me,  I  wonder? 
Or  for  her  opinions  on  my  ways  of  living?  Of  all  the 
cheeky  monkeys!  Pitching  into  me  like  that — just 
because  she  missed  her  blessed  waltz !  Certainly  it  was 
rotten  of  me — I  don't  say  it  wasn't.  But  I  forgot. 
I  told  her  I  forgot.  Didn't  I  come  straight  down  here 
and  tell  her?  Left  those  fellows — left  a  jack-pot!  O 
my  aunt!  And  that's  all  I  get  for  it — a  decent  and 
reasonable  fellow  like  me  to  be  called  such  names  just 
because  1  distract  myself  with  the  only  one  or  two 
things  that  can  delude  one  into  believing  that  life  is 
worth  living  in  this  rotten  country!  Drunkard  and 
gambler — fine  words  to  fling  at  a  man  like  bomb- 
shells!" 

Thus  it  was  with  Druro,  whom  all  men  hailed  as 
"well-met,"  and  all  women  liked,  and  all  Rhodesia 
called  "Lundi,"  though  his  Christian  names  were 
really  Francis  Everard.  No  one  had  ever  called  him 
anything  but  Lundi  since  the  day  he  jumped  into  the 
Lundi  River  to  save  his  dog's  life.  He  was  on  a  shoot 
with  half  a  dozen  other  men,  and  they  had  heavily 
dynamited  a  portion  of  the  river  to  bring  up  some  fresh 
fish  for  dinner.  Drum's  dog,  thinking  it  was  a  game 
he  knew,  jumped  in  after  one  of  the  sticks  of  dynamite 
to  bring  it  out  to  his  master,  and  Druro,  like  a  flash, 
was  in  after  him  and  out  again,  just  in  time  to  save 
himself  and  the  dog  from  being  blown  to  smithereens. 
"The  bravest  action  he  had  ever  seen  in  his  life,"  one 
of  the  witnesses  described  it — and  he  had  been  through 


102  The  Leopard 

several  native  wars  and  knew  what  he  was  talking 
about,  just  as  Druro,  who  was  a  mining  expert,  knew 
the  risk  he  was  taking  when  he  jumped  in  among  the 
dynamite. 

This  was  the  man  who  was  filled  with  rage  and  deso- 
lation of  heart  at  the  words  of  "a  little  monkey  of 
eighteen  or  nineteen — old  dissipated  Derek  Liscannon's 
daughter,  I  thank  you!  Nice  school  to  come  to  for 
temperance  lectures!  Not  that  she  can  help  being 
Derry's  daughter,  and  not  that  old  Derry  is  a  bad  sort 
— far  from  it — but  as  hard  a  drinker  as  you  could  find 
in  a  day's  march.  And  young  Derry  hits  it  up  a  bit, 
too,  though  one  of  the  nicest  boys  in  the  world.  I've 
always  said  that  Gay  was  the  sweetest,  prettiest  little 
kid  in  Rhodesia — in  Africa,  if  it  comes  to  that — and 
now  she  turns  on  me  like  this — blow  her  buttons!" 

He  strode  along  the  soft,  dusty  roads  that  still  had  a 
feel  of  the  veld  in  them,  neither  looking  nor  listing 
whither  he  went.  It  was  a  soft,  plaintive  voice  that 
brought  him  to  a  standstill,  and  the  realization  that 
he  was  close  to  the  Wankelo  railway  station. 

"Oh,  can  you  tell  whether  the  Falcon  Hotel  is  far 
from  here?" 

"The  Falcon  Hotel,  madam?"  His  hand  went 
instinctively  to  his  head,  but  there  was  no  hat  upon 
it.  "There  is  surely  a  bus  here  that  will  take  you  to 
it,"  he  said,  looking  about  him. 

She  gave  a  little  laugh. 

"Yes;  but  I  don't  want  my  poor  bones  rattled  to 
pieces  in  a  bus  if  it  is  not  too  far  to  walk. " 

Dimly  he  could  see  a  slight  figure  swathed  in  velvety 
darkness  of  furs  and  veils  that  gave  out  a  faint  perfume 
of  violets,  and  the  suggestion  of  a  pale,  oval  face.  Her 
voice  was  low  and  sweet. 


The  Leopard  103 

"It  is  not  very  far,"  said  Druro.  "I  will  gladly 
show  you  the  way,  if  you  will  allow  me." 

"That  is  so  very  kind  of  you,"  she  answered  softly, 
and  fell  into  step  by  his  side. 

As  they  walked,  she  told  him,  with  the  simple 
aplomb  of  a  well-bred  woman  of  the  world,  that  she 
had  just  arrived  by  the  train  from  Buluwayo  and  was 
going  on  to  a  place  called  Selukine  for  a  week  or  two. 
It  was  not  necessary  for  her  to  tell  him  that  she  was 
recently  from  home,  for  he  knew  it  by  her  air,  her 
voice,  her  accent,  her  rustly  garments,  the  soft  per- 
fume of  fur  and  violets,  and  a  dozen  little  intangible 
signs  and  symbols  that  all  had  an  appeal  for  him. 
For  Druro  was  one  of  those  Englishmen  who  love 
England  from  afar  a  great  deal  better  than  they  do 
when  at  home.  He  had  lived  in  Rhodesia,  off  and 
on,  for  ten  years,  and  the  veld  life  was  in  the  very 
blood  and  bones  of  him.  Yet  he  always  spoke  of  it 
as  a  rotten  country,  and  gravely  affirmed  that  it  was 
bad  luck  to  have  to  live  away  from  England. 

"Give  me  London  lamp-posts,"  he  was  in  the  habit 
of  saying,  "and  you  can  have  all  the  veld  you  want  for 
keeps."  And  he  went  home  every  year,  declaring 
that  he  was  finished  with  Africa  and  would  never  come 
back.  Yet  he  came  back.  Also,  he  had  built  himself 
a  lovely  little  ranch-house  in  the  midst  of  five  thousand 
acres  of  Sombwelo  Forest,  where  there  were  no  lamp- 
posts at  all,  only  trees  and  a  silent,  deep  river  full  of 
crocodiles.  It  is  true  that  he  had  never  lived  there. 
He  only  went  there  and  mooned  by  himself  sometimes, 
when  he  was  "out"  with  the  world.  It  had  occurred 
to  him,  since  his  rencontre  with  Gay,  that  he  would 
go  there  very  shortly.  But  now  this  rustling,  softly 
perfumed  lady  made  him  remember  his  beloved  lamp- 


104  The  Leopard 

posts.     It  was  a  year  since  he  had  been  home,  and 
she  meant  home. 

She  was  London;  she  was  Torment;  she  was  Town. 

Curiosity  to  see  her  face  consumed  him.  He  felt 
certain  that  she  was  beautiful.  No  plain  woman  could 
be  so  self-possessed  and  sure  of  herself,  could  give  out 
such  subtle  charm  and  fascination.  After  the  brutal 
and  unexpected  treatment  he  had  received  at  the  hands 
of  Gay  Liscannon,  he  felt  himself  under  some  sweet, 
healing  spell. 

They  reached  the  hotel  all  too  soon.  The  bus,  with 
her  luggage  on  it,  had  passed  them  by  the  way,  and 
host  and  porters  were  awaiting  her  at  the  front  door. 
In  the  light  she  turned  to  thank  him  with  a  charming 
smile,  and  he  saw,  as  he  expected,  that  her  face  was 
subtly  beautiful. 

"  I  hope  we  shall  meet  again,  Mr. "  She  paused 

smiling. 

"Druro,"  he  supplied,  smiling  too,  "and  this  is 
Rhodesia.  I'm  afraid  you  can't  miss  meeting  me 
again — if  you  try. " 

He,  too,  as  she  very  well  observed,  was  good  to  be- 
hold, standing  there  with  the  light  on  his  handsome 
head.  She  did  not  miss  the  potency  of  his  smile. 
Nor,  being  a  woman  who  dealt  in  lights  and  shades 
herself,  was  the  flattering  significance  of  his  words 
wasted  upon  her. 

"Tant  meiux!"  she  said,  and,  in  case  he  was  no 
French  scholar,  repeated  it  in  English,  as  she  held  out 
her  slim  gloved  hand — "All  the  better!  " 

Gay  and  a  man  she  had  been  dancing  with  came  out 
and  passed  them  as  they  stood  there  smiling  and  touch- 


The  Leopard  105 

ing  hands — a  handsome,  debonair  man  and  a  subtly 
beautiful  woman.  Gay  took  the  pictuie  of  them  home 
with  her,  and  stayed  long  thinking  of  it  when  she 
should  have  been  sleeping.  Long  she  leaned  from  her 
bedroom  window,  gazing  at  the  great  grey  spaces  of 
veld  that  she  loved  so  much,  but  seeing  them  not. 
All  she  could  see  was  Druro's  face  turned  cold,  the 
rocklike  expression  of  his  eyes  when  he  stared  at  her 
as  though  she  had  been  some  stranger — she,  who  had 
loved  him  for  years,  ever  since,  as  a  girl  of  sixteen, 
straight  from  England  and  from  school,  she  first  saw 
him  and  found  in  his  clear,  careless  face  and  fearless 
ways  the  crystallization  of  all  her  girlish  dreams. 
Lovely  and  spirited,  decked  in  the  bloom  of  youth,  she 
had  more,  perhaps,  than  her  fair  share  of  admirers  and 
adorers.  Every  man  who  met  her  fell,  to  some  extent, 
in  love  with  her.  "  Gay  fever"  it  was  called ;  and  they 
all  went  through  it,  and  some  recovered  and  some  did 
not.  But  Gay's  fever  was  for  Lundi  Druro,  though 
she  hid  it  well  behind  locked  lips  and  a  sweet,  serene 
gaze.  She  could  not  see  him  riding  down  the  street, 
or  standing  among  a  group  of  his  fellows  (for  other 
men  always  clustered  about  Druro),  or  even  catch  a 
glimpse  of  his  big  red  Argyle  car  standing  outside  a 
building,  without  a  tingling  of  all  the  life  in  her  veins. 
But  she  was  neither  blind  nor  a  fool.  Her  spirit 
brooded  over  Druro  with  the  half-mystical  and  half- 
maternal  love  that  all  true  women  accord  to  the  be- 
loved; but  she  knew  very  well  that  he  had  never  looked 
her  way  and  that  the  chances  were  he  never  might. 
He  was  a  man's  man.  He  liked  women,  and  his  eyes 
always  lit  up  when  he  saw  one,  but  he  forgot  all  about 
them  when  they  were  not  there,  forgot  them  easily  in 
cards  and  conviviality  and  the  society  of  other  men. 


106  The  Leopard 

Once,  when  someone  had  attacked  him  about  his 
indifference  to  women,  he  had  answered: 

"Why,  I  adore  women!  But  1  prefer  the  society  of 
men — there  are  fewer  regrets  afterward." 

There  was  no  doubt  that  he  exercised  a  tremendous 
personal  magnetism  upon  other  men — attracted  them, 
amused  them,  and  influenced  them,  even  obsessed 
them.  The  way  he  could  make  them  do  things  just 
out  of  sheer  liking  for  him  almost  amounted  to  mes- 
merism. It  must  be  added  that,  though  they  were 
often  unpractical,  crazy,  unwise,  even  dangerous 
things  he  influenced  others  to  do,  they  were  never 
shameful  or  in  any  way  shady.  There  wasn't  a 
shameful  instinct  or  thought  in  the  whole  of  Lundi 
Druro's  composition.  Gay,  however,  divined  in  him 
that  his  power  of  obsessing  the  minds  of  other  men  had 
become,  or  was  on  the  way  of  becoming,  a  temptation 
and  obsession  to  himself.  She  was  wise  enough  to 
realize  that  hardly  any  man  in  the  world  can  stand  too 
much  popularity,  also  to  see  the  rocks  ahead  for  Druro 
in  a  country  where  men  drink  and  gamble  far  too  much, 
and  are  fast  in  the  clutches  of  these  vices  before  they 
realize  them  as  bad  habits.  It  was  not  for  nothing 
that  she  was  Derek  Liscannon's  daughter  and  Deny 
Liscannon's  sister. 

She  had  her  worries  and  anxieties,  poor  Gay,  though 
she  carried  them  with  a  stiff  lip  and  never  let  the  world 
guess  how  often  her  heart  was  aching  behind  her  smile. 
But,  of  late,  the  worst  of  them  had  come  to  be  in  the 
fear  that  Lundi  Druro  was  going  the  way  so  many 
good  men  go  in  Rhodesia — full-tilt  for  the  rocks  of 
moral  and  physical  ruin. 

This  was  the  reason  for  her  attack  on  him.  She  had 
long  meditated  something  of  the  kind,  though  quite 


The  Leopard  107 

certain  that  he  would  take  it  badly.  But  she  had 
thought  that  his  friendship  with  her  family  and  herself 
warranted  (she  knew  that  her  love  did)  her  doing  a 
thing  from  which  her  soul  shrank  but  did  not  retreat — 
hurting  another  human  soul  so  as  to  help  it  to  its  own 
healing.  And  it  had  all  ended  in  disappointment  and 
despair.  Nothing  to  show  for  it  but  the  picture  of 
him  standing  happy  and  gay,  his  eyes  admiringly 
fixed  on  another  woman!  Perhaps  the  beautiful 
stranger  would  solace  him  for  the  wound  Gay's  hand 
had  dealt?  Who  could  she  be?  the  girl  wondered 
miserably. 

But,  by  the  next  afternoon,  everyone  in  Wankelo 
knew  that  Mrs.  Hading,  beautiful,  unattached,  and 
travelling  for  her  pleasure,  was  staying  at  the  "  Fal- 
con"; and  Beryl  Hallett,  who  was  also  staying  there, 
had  already  met  her  and  prepared  a  complete  synop- 
sis of  her  character,  clothes,  and  manners  (not  to 
mention  features,  complexion,  and  hair)  for  the  bene- 
fit of  her  friend,  Gay  Liscannon. 

"  My  dear,  she  has  lovely,  weary  manners  and 
lovely,  weary  eyes,  with  an  expression  as  if  she  doesn't 
take  any  interest  in  anything;  but  you  bet  she  does!" 
said  Beryl,  whose  language  always  contained  a  some- 
what sporting  flavour.  "  You  bet  she  takes  an  inter- 
est in  clothes  and  men  and  everything  that's  going! 
Nothing  much  gets  past  those  weary  eyes.  And  she 
is  as  chic  as  the  deuce.  Never  have  we  seen  such 
clothes  up  here.  She  sme41s  so  delicious,  too — not 
scented,  you  know,  but  just  little  faint  puffs  of  fra- 
grance. I  wish  I  knew  how  to  do  it.  But  I  don't  think 
you  can  do  it  without  sachets  in  your  corsets  and  a  maid 
to  sew  them  into  all  your  clothes,  and  salts  and  per- 
fumes for  your  bath,  and  plenty  of  tin  to  keep  it  all  go- 


io8  The  Leopard 

ing!  Blow!  How  can  poverty-stricken  wretches  like 
us  contend  with  that  kind  of  thing,  I'd  like  to  know?" 

"We  don't  have  to  contend  with  it,"  said  Gay  in- 
differently. 

The  two  girls  were  sitting  in  Berlie's  mother's  pri- 
vate sitting-room  upstairs.  Gay  was  in  riding-kit 
and  had  come  to  beguile  Berlie  to  go  for  a  canter. 

"Oh,  don't  we?"  said  the  latter  emphatically. 
"You  should  just  see  the  pile  of  men  that  came  in  to 
lunch  here  today — just  to  have  a  look  at  her.  The 
story  of  her  glory  has  gone  forth.  She  came  over  to 
our  table  and  asked  if  we  minded  if  she  sat  with  us, 
and  then  she  wound  her  lovely  manners  all  around 
mother  so  that  mum  thinks  she's  a  dream  and  an 
angel.  But  /  don't  cotton  to  her  much,  Gay — and  I 
can  feel  she  doesn't  like  me,  either,  though  she  was  as 
sweet  as  honey.  My  dear,  she  will  nobble  all  our  men 
— I  feel  it  in  my  bones." 

"Let  her,"  said  Gay  listlessly. 

"She  even  has  old  Lundi  Druro  crumpled  up — what 
do  you  think  of  that?"  Gay's  charming  face  turned 
to  a  mask.  "That  gives  you  an  idea  of  her  power," 
continued  Beryl  dolorously,  "if  she  can  keep  Lundi 
Druro  amused.  She  is  sitting  in  the  lounge  with  him 
now.  They've  been  there  ever  since  lunch,  and  he  was 
to  have  gone  out  to  his  mine  early  this  morning." 

Gay  jumped  up  from  her  chair. 

"Are  you  coming  for  that  ride  or  not,  Berlie?  I'm 
sick  of  scorching  indoors."  There  were,  indeed,  two 
spots  of  flame  in  her  cheeks. 

"Oh,  Gay,  I  can't;  I  am  too  G.  I.  for  anything." 
"G.  I."  is  Rhodesian  for  "gone  in,"  a  common  condi- 
tion for  both  men  and  women  and  things  in  that 
sprightly  land  of  nicknames  and  nick-phrases. 


The  Leopard  109 

"I'm  off,  then,"  said  Gay  hurriedly. 

"Wait  a  minute — I'll  come  down  with  you!"  said 
Beryl,  and,  rushing  to  the  mirror  over  the  mantel, 
began  to  pat  her  pretty  cendre  hair  flat  to  her  head, 
in  unconscious  imitation  of  Mrs.  Hading's  coiffure. 

The  two  girls  went  downstairs  together,  Beryl's  arm 
thrust  through  her  friend's.  Gay's  horse  stood  at  the 
side  entrance,  facing  the  staircase.  She  instinctively 
quickened  her  pace  as  they  reached  the  lounge  door, 
but,  before  she  could  pass,  it  opened,  and  Mrs.  Hallett 
came  out. 

"Oh,  I  was  just  coming  to  look  for  you  girls.  Mrs. 
Scott  is  in  from  Umvuma,  Gay,  and  dying  to  see  you." 

Gay  gave  an  inward  groan.  Mrs.  Scott  was  an  old 
friend  of  her  dead  mother's,  and  about  the  only  woman 
in  the  world  for  whom  the  girl  would  have  entered  the 
lounge  at  that  moment.  As  it  was,  she  followed 
Beryl's  mother  swiftfoot  through  the  swing  door,  very 
upright  and  smart  in  her  glossy  tan  riding-boots, 
knee-breeches,  and  graceful  long  coat  of  soft  tan  linen. 
In  the  matter  of  riding-kit,  Gay  always  went  nap.  A 
ball  or  day  gown  she  might  wear  until  it  fell  off  her 
back,  but  when  it  came  to  habits,  she  considered 
nothing  too  good  or  too  recent  for  her. 

For  a  moment,  Marice  Hading  looked  away  from 
the  man  who  sat  opposite,  amusing  her  with  apt  and 
cynical  reflections  on  life  in  Rhodesia,  and  shot  a  soft, 
dark  glance  at  the  straight  back  of  the  girl  in  riding-kit. 
Her  cleverly  appraising  eye  took  in,  with  the  instan- 
taneousness  of  photography,  every  detail  of  Gay's 
get-up,  and  her  brain  acknowledged  that  she  had  sel- 
dom seen  a  better  one  either  in  Central  Park  or  Rotten 
Row.  But  no  expression  of  any  such  opinion  showed 
in  her  weary,  disdainful  eyes  or  found  its  way  to  her 


no  The  Leopard 

lips,  for  in  the  art  of  using  language  to  conceal  her 
thoughts,  Marice  Hading  had  few  rivals.  What  she 
said  to  Druro,  whose  glance  had  also  wandered  that 
way,  was: 

"One  cannot  help  noticing  what  a  hard-riding, 
healthy-looking  crowd  the  women  of  this  country  are." 

The  words  sounded  like  a  simple,  frank  statement; 
but  somehow  they  robbed  Gay  of  some  of  the  perfec- 
tion of  her  young  and  charming  ensemble,  and  made 
her  one  of  a  crowd  in  which  her  distinction  was  lost. 
Druro  felt  this  vaguely  without  being  able  to  tell 
exactly  how  it  happened.  He  knew  nothing  of  the 
subtleties  of  a  woman's  mind.  He  had  thought  that 
Gay  looked  rather  splendidly  young  and  sweet,  and, 
because  of  it,  a  fresh  pang  shot  through  him  at  the 
remembrance  of  her  scornful  dismissal  of  him  the  night 
before.  But,  with  Mrs.  Hading' s  words,  the  impres- 
sion passed,  and  he  got  a  quick  vision  of  Gay  as  just 
an  ordinary  girl  who  had  been  extremely  rude  to  him. 
This  helped  him  to  meet  with  equanimity  the  calm, 
clear  glance  she  sent  through  him. 

"  Don't  you  know  the  little  riding  girl?"  asked  Mrs. 
Hading  softly,  but  something  in  Druro's  surprised 
expression  made  her  cover  the  question  with  a  faintly 
admiring  remark:  "She's  quite  good-looking,  I  think. 
Who  is  she?" 

"The  daughter  of  an  old  friend  of  mine — a  Colonel 
Liscannon,"  said  Druro,  speaking  in  a  low  voice  and 
rapidly.  He  would  have  preferred  not  to  discuss  Gay 
at  all,  but  his  natural  generosity  impelled  him  to 
accord  her  such  dignity  and  place  as  belonged  to  her 
and  not  to  leave  her  where  Mrs.  Hading's  words  seemed 
to  place  her — just  the  other  side  of  some  fine,  invisible 
line. 


The  Leopard  in 

"Ah,  one  of  the  early  pioneers?  They  were  all  by 
way  of  being  captains  and  colonels,  weren't  they?" 
murmured  Marice  Hading,  still  weaving  fine,  invisible 
threads. 

Druro  frowned  slightly.  "  Colonel  Liscannon  is  an 
old  service-man ' 

"  May  I  beg  for  one  of  those  delicious  cigarettes  you 
were  smoking  after  lunch?"  she  said  languidly.  "  And 
do  tell  where  to  get  some  like  them.  I  find  it  so  diffi- 
cult to  get  anything  at  all  smokable  up  here,  except 
from  your  clubs." 

Thus,  Colonel  Liscannon  and  his  daughter  were 
gracefully  consigned  to  the  limbo  of  subjects  not 
sufficiently  interesting  to  hold  the  attention  of  Mrs. 
Hading.  If  she  could  not,  by  reason  of  Druro's  na- 
tural chivalry,  put  Gay  just  over  the  wrong  side  of 
some  subtle  social  line  she  had  drawn,  she  could,  at 
least,  thrust  her  out  of  the  conversation  altogether 
and  out  of  Druro's  mind.  This  was  always  a  pastime 
she  found  fascinating — pushing  someone  out  of  a  man's 
mind  and  taking  the  empty  place  herself — and  one  at 
which  long  practice  had  made  her  nearly  perfect. 
So  it  is  not  astonishing  that  she  succeeded  so  well  with 
Druro  that,  when  Gay  left  her  friends  and  slipped  out 
to  her  waiting  horse,  he  did  not  even  notice  her  going. 
He  was  busy  trying  to  persuade  Mrs.  Hading  to  come 
for  a  spin  around  the  Wankelo  kopje  in  his  car,  and 
he  was  not  unsuccessful.  Only,  they  went  further 
than  the  kopje.  About  six  miles  out  they  got  a 
glimpse  of  a  solitary  rider  ahead,  going  like  the  wind. 
A  cloud  of  soft,  ashen  dust  rising  from  under  the 
horse's  heels  floated  back  and  settled  like  the  gentle 
dew  from  heaven  upon  the  car  and  its  occupants. 
Druro  was  on  the  point  of  slackening  speed,  but  Mrs. 


ii2  The  Leopard 

Hading's  pencilled  brows  met  in  a  line  above  her  eyes, 
and  one  of  her  little  white  teeth  showed  in  herunderlip. 

"Get  past  her,  please,"  she  said  coldly.  "I  object 
to  other  people's  dust." 

Druro  was  about  to  object  in  his  turn,  though,  for  a 
moment,  he  philandered  with  the  delightful  thought  of 
getting  even  with  Gay  by  covering  her  with  dust  and 
petrol  fumes.  Unfortunately,  his  gallant  resistance 
to  this  pleasant  temptation  would  never  be  known,  for 
Gay  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  wheeled  to  the  left 
and  put  her  horse's  head  to  the  veld.  The  swift 
wheeling  movement,  with  its  attendant  extra  scuffling 
of  dust,  sent  a  further  graceful  contribution  of  fine 
dirt  on  to  the  occupants  of  the  car.  It  would  have 
been  difficult  to  accuse  Gay  of  doing  it  on  purpose, 
however,  for  she  appeared  blandly  unconscious  of  the 
neighbourhood  of  fellow  beings.  She  gave  a  little 
flick  of  her  whip,  and  away  she  went  over  a  great  burnt- 
out  patch  of  veld,  leaving  the  long,  white,  dusty  road 
to  those  who  had  no  choice  but  to  take  it. 

Mrs.  Hading  did  not  love  Gay  Liscannon  any  better 
for  her  score,  but  she  would  have  disliked  her  in  any 
case.  Because  she  was  no  longer  young  herself,  youth 
drove  at  her  heart  like  a  poisoned  dagger.  One  of  the 
few  keen  pleasures  she  had  left  in  life  was  to  bare  her 
foils  to  the  attack  of  some  inexperienced  girl,  to  match 
her  wit  and  art  and  beauty  against  a  fresh  cheek  and 
ingenuous  heart,  and  prove  to  the  world  that  victory 
was  still  to  her.  But  when  she  had  done  it,  victory 
was  dust  in  her  palm  and  bitter  in  her  mouth  as  dead- 
sea  apples.  For  she  knew  that  the  wolf  of  middle  age 
was  at  her  door. 

Marice  Hading  was  one  of  those  unhappy  women 
who  have  drained  to  the  dregs  every  cup  of  pleasure 


The  Leopard  113 

they  can  wrench  from  life  and  fled  from  the  healing 
cup  of  pain.  Now,  with  the  chilly  and  uncompromis- 
ing hand  of  forty  clutching  at  her,  pain  was  always 
with  her — not  ennobling,  chastening  pain,  but  the  pain 
of  those  who,  having  been  overfull,  must  henceforth 
go  empty. 

Small  wonder  that,  weary-eyed  and  dry-souled,  she 
roamed  the  earth  in  feverish  search  of  solace  and 
refreshment.  Her  husband,  a  generous,  affectionate 
man,  condemned  by  her  selfishness  to  a  waste  of  arid 
years  empty  of  wife-love  or  children,  had  died  of  over- 
work, dyspepsia,  and  general  dissatisfaction  some  eight 
years  before,  leaving  his  widow  with  an  income  of 
two  thousand  pounds  a  year,  a  sum  she  found  all  too 
small  for  her  requirements. 

In  her  fashion,  she  had  been  in  love  several  times 
during  her  widowhood,  but  never  sufficiently  so  to 
surrender  her  liberty.  Horror  of  child-bearing  and  a 
passion  for  the  care  and  cultivation  of  her  own  beauty 
were  further  reasons  for  not  succumbing  to  the  tempta- 
tion to  take  another  man  slave  in  marriage.  She  had 
contented  herself  with  holding  the  hearts  of  the  men 
who  loved  her  in  her  hands  and  squeezing  them  dry  of 
every  drop  of  devotion  and  self-sacrifice  they  could 
generate. 

But  the> harvest  of  hearts  was  giving  out,  and  the 
wolf  was  at  the  door.  She  had  had  very  bad  luck  in 
the  last  year  or  two.  The  hearts  that  had  come  her 
way  were  as  selfish  as  her  own,  and  knew  how  to  slip 
elusively  from  greedy  little  hands,  without  yielding 
too  much.  For  a  long  time  it  had  seemed  to  her  that 
the  world  had  become  bankrupt  of  big,  generous- 
giving  hearts,  and  that  there  were  no  more  little  games 
of  life  worth  playing.  Now,  suddenly  and  unex- 
s 


ii4  The  Leopard 

pectedly,  she  happened  upon  Wankelo,  a  green  spot 
in  the  desert.  Here  were  girls  to  act  as  counters  in 
the  game  she  loved  to  play,  and  here,  too,  unless  she 
were  grievously  mistaken,  was  a  man  who  had  the 
best  of  sport  to  offer.  With  the  hunter's  sure  instinct 
for  the  prey,  she  recognized  unerringly  the  big,  gener- 
ous qualities  of  Druro's  nature.  Here  was  a  heart 
that  could  be  made  to  suffer  and  to  give.  Besides, 
he  was  extremely  good-looking.  She  felt  a  kind  of 
hopeful  certainty  that  he  could  offer  her  jaded  heart 
something  new  in  the  way  of  emotions. 

In  consideration  of  these  things,  she  decided  to  pitch 
her  tent  for  a  while  in  Wankelo.  Selukine  could  wait. 
Her  projected  visit  there  was,  in  any  case,  only  one  of 
speculation  and  curiosity.  She  had  heard  of  the  place 
as  being  thick  with  small  gold  mines  closed  down  for 
want  of  capital,  and  it  had  occurred  to  her  that 
the  possibility  of  finding  a  gold  mine  cheaply,  and  a 
capitalist  for  nothing  at  all,  was  quite  on  the  cards. 
Besides,  discreet  inquiry,  or,  rather,  discreet  listening 
to  the  frank  discussion  of  other  people's  affairs,  which 
is  one  of  the  features  of  Rhodesian  life,  had  elicited 
the  happy  information  that  Druro  was  on  the  way  to 
becoming  a  very  wealthy  man.  The  Leopard  reef, 
report  said,  was  making  bigger  and  richer  at  every 
blast,  and  the  expectation  was  that  it  would  be  the 
richest  thing  in  the  way  of  mines  that  Rhodesia  had 
yet  known.  Luck,  like  nature,  has  her  darlings. 

The  Leopard  mine  was  Druro's  own  property  and 
the  darling  of  his  heart,  next  to  his  dog  Toby.  He  had 
taken  forty  thousand  pounds  sterling  from  it  in  one 
year  and  spent  it  in  another.  That  was  the  time  he 
stayed  away  a  whole  year  among  the  lamp-posts, 
"forgot"  to  get  married,  and  came  back  without  a 


The  Leopard  115 

bean.  He  declared  there  were  plenty  more  forty 
thousands  to  be  got  out  of  the  Leopard,  and  perhaps 
there  were,  but,  unfortunately,  during  his  absence  the 
reef  had  been  lost.  As  he  was  the  only  man  who 
believed  it  would  ever  be  found  again,  he  had  encoun- 
tered some  difficulty  in  getting  together  sufficient 
capital  to  restart  the  mine,  for,  of  course,  it  had  been 
shut  down  on  the  loss  of  the  reef.  But,  on  the 
strength  of  his  personality,  he  had  succeeded  where 
most  men  would  have  failed.  After  many  months, 
operations  were  in  full  swing.  It  was  said  that  the 
mine  was  panning  three  ounces  over  a  width  of  four- 
six,  and  a  strike  of  a  thousand  feet  proved,  with  the 
reef  at  the  bottom  of  the  shaft,  richer  and  stronger 
than  ever.  But  Druro  himself  gave  away  little  in- 
formation on  the  subject,  beyond  admitting  sometimes 
in  the  bitters-time  before  dinner  at  the  club,  that  the 
mine  was  looking  all  right.  Rumour  did  the  rest. 

For  a  few  days  after  Mrs.  Hading's  arrival,  Lundi 
Druro  disappeared  from  every-day  life  in  Wankelo. 
It  was  a  way  he  had  of  doing,  and  everyone  who  sought 
him  at  such  times  would  find  him  at  the  Leopard  in 
pants  embroidered  with  great  holes  burned  into  them 
by  cyanide  and  acids,  a  disreputable  shirt  without 
any  buttons  or  collar,  and  face  and  hands  blackened 
beyond  recognition  with  the  machine-oil  and  grime 
inseparable  from  a  large  mining  plant.  He  always 
did  his  own  assaying,  taking  both  time  and  trouble 
over  it.  It  must  certainly  be  admitted  that,  if  he 
knew  how  to  play  when  he  played,  he  also  worked 
some  when  he  worked. 

During  this  time,  Mrs.  Hading  was  busy  in  many 
ways,  but  chiefly  in  winding  her  lovely  manners  about 
people  whom  she  decided  would  be  useful  to  her,  and 


n6  The  Leopard 

prosecuting  a  further  acquaintance  with  Beryl  Hallett 
and  Gay  Liscannon.  It  was  quite  unavoidable  that 
she  and  Gay  should  meet,  however  averse  they  might 
be  to  one  another,  and  each  accepted  the  fact  with  an 
outward  calm  that  gave  no  indication  of  inward  fires. 
Mrs.  Hading  was  charming  to  Gay,  as  was  her  inva- 
riable practice  while  searching  for  chinks  in  the  op- 
ponent's armour.  Her  hands  blessed,  even  while  her 
fingers  were  busy  feeling  for  the  soft  spots  in  the  vic- 
tim's skull.  Gay,  on  her  side,  was  pleasant,  polite, 
and  interested,  while  guarding  her  heart  behind  a 
barrier  as  fine  as  a  shirt  of  steel  mail.  For,  though  of 
a  frank  and  generous  disposition,  she  was  not  a  fool, 
and  life  had  taught  her  a  few  things  about  the  attitude 
of  mind  of  most  pretty  unattached  women  toward 
young  girls  in  the  same  case. 

At  eleven  o'clock  one  morning,  they  were  all  gath- 
ered round  Mrs.  Hallett's  tea-table — Gay,  Berlie, 
Mrs.  Hading,  and  several  men,  for  1 1  A.M.  is  the 
"off"  hour  in  Rhodesia,  when  everyone  leaves  his 
business,  if  he  has  any,  to  take  tea  in  the  pleasantest 
society  he  can  find.  At  Wankelo,  most  people  sallied 
forth  to  the  lounge  of  the  "Falcon,"  the  club-room  of 
the  town,  where  morning  tea  was  a  ceremony,  almost 
a  rite. 

Someone  had  just  remarked  on  the  prolonged  ab- 
sence of  Lundi  Druro  when  his  car  rolled  up  to  the 
door,  and,  a  moment  later  he  strolled  in  and  came 
over  to  the  circle  of  tea-drinkers,  cool  and  peaceful  in 
their  white  clothes  and  shady  hats.  Unfortunately,  his 
dog,  Toby,  chose  this  as  a  suitable  occasion  for  saying 
a  few  pleasant  words  to  Gay's  dog,  Weary.  In  a 
moment  chairs  were  being  pushed  out  of  the  way; 
teacups  and  scones  and  buttered  toast  were  flying  in 


The  Leopard  117 

every  direction;  men  were  tangled  up  with  a  revolving, 
growling  mass  of  black  and  brown  fur,  and  half  a 
dozen  feminine  voices  were  crying  pitifully: 

"Oh,  save  Toby!"  "Don't  let  Weary  kill  him!" 
" Poor  little  Toby,  he  has  no  teeth!" 

Toby  was  not  the  dog  Druro  had  fished  out  of  the 
Lundi  River — to  that  bull-terrier  there  had  been  many 
successors,  and  all  had  come  to  bad  and  untimely  ends. 
Druro,  indeed,  had  sworn  that  he  would  never  acquire 
another  dog;  but  Toby  had  sprung  from  none  knew 
whence  and  acquired  him.  He  was  a  little  black, 
limping  fellow  of  no  breed  at  all,  whose  eyes  had  grown 
filmy  from  long  gazing  at  Lundi  Druro  as  if  he  were  a 
sun-god  or  something  that  dazzled  the  vision.  He 
usually  carried  a  sacrificial  offering  in  the  shape  of  an 
enormous  stone  culled  on  his  travels,  and,  with  this  in 
his  mouth,  would  sit  for  hours,  gazing  at  his  god  play- 
ing poker  or  otherwise  engaged.  The  only  time  he 
relinquished  this  stone  was  when  he  had  a  fight  on 
hand,  a  rather  frequent  occurrence,  as  his  perpetual 
limp  and  partially  chewed-off  ears  testified.  For, 
though  his  teeth  were  worn  away  by  the  stone-habit, 
he  had  a  soul  of  steel  and  was  afraid  of  nothing  in  the 
dog  line.  Gay's  dog  was  one  of  those  from  whom  he 
would  stand  no  nonsense,  and  they  never  met  without 
attempting  to  settle  their  feud  for  once  and  all.  Druro 
usually  settled  it  by  banging  Weary  on  the  nose  until 
he  let  go,  for  the  latter  was  a  powerful  beast,  and  if 
allowed  to  work  his  wicked  way,  Toby  would  not  have 
had  a  hope.  But  today,  for  some  reason  known  to 
himself,  Druro  had  an  objection  to  hitting  Gay's  dog 
and  contented  himself  with  wrenching  Weary's  jaws 
apart,  a  dangerous  and  not  very  easy  feat  to  accom- 
plish. Weaiy,  however,  came  in  for  several  sound 


u8  The  Leopard 

kicks  and  cuffs  from  other  directions,  and  his  mistress 
was  in  by  no  means  an  angelic  frame  of  mind  by  the 
time  bhe  had  her  champion  safe  back  between  her 
knees,  held  by  his  collar. 

"Why  don't  you  keep  your  wretched  little  mongrel 
at  home?"  she  inquired  bitterly  of  Druro. 

"It's  a  free  country,"  responded  Lundi  blandly, 
wiping  his  damp  brow  and  Toby's  bloody  ear  with  the 
same  handkerchief.  "  You  should  train  your  bully  to 
go  for  dogs  of  his  own  size." 

"You  know  Toby  always  starts  it." 

"Well,  I  don't  say  he  doesn't,"  admitted  Druro. 
"  But  he  does  it  on  principle.  He's  a  born  reformer — 
aren't  you,  Tobe?  Picks  a  scrap  with  any  one  he  con- 
siders a  disreputable,  dissipated  character."  Toby's 
master  smiled  mockingly  at  Weary's  mistress. 

"Reformation,  like  charity,  should  begin  at  home," 
she  flashed  back,  and  the  instant  she  had  uttered  the 
words  could  have  bitten  off  her  tongue.  For  everyone 
was  smiling  delightedly.  A  few  quarrels  and  scandals 
give  a  zest  to  life  in  Rhodesia,  and  are  always  warmly 
welcomed.  No  one  knew  the  real  foundation  of  Gay's 
and  Druro's  misunderstanding,  but  it  had  been  plain 
for  some  time  that  there  was  one. 

"We  were  talking  about  getting  up  a  picnic,"  said 
peace-loving  Mrs.  Hallett.  "Mrs.  Hading  must  be 
shown  a  real  Rhodesian  picnic." 

"I  want  it  to  be  a  moonlight  one!"  cried  Berlie. 
"They  are  twice  as  much  fun." 

"Yes;  but  there  won't  be  a  moon  for  nearly  a 
month,"  someone  complained. 

"  Well,  we  must  have  a  day  picnic  now,  and  a  moon- 
light one  next  month.  We  shall  want  your  car, 
Lundi." 


The  Leopard  119 

"You  can  have  it  any  time.  Where  do  you  think 
of  going?" 

"  Either  to  Sombwelo  Forest  or  Selukine." 

Everyone  agreed  that  Mrs.  Hading  must  see  both 
of  these  lovely  places. 

"I  have  to  go  to  Selukine  anyway,  on  business," 
said  Mrs.  Hading,  who  had  no  idea  of  letting  her  plan 
to  motor  through  that  district  in  Druro's  company 
be  interfered  with  by  picnics,  "so  please  let  it  be 
Sombwelo." 

"  You  can  have  my  ranch  there  as  a  base  of  opera- 
tions," proffered  Lundi,  "and  make  my  boys  do  the 
work." 

They  all  applauded  this  except  Gay,  who  submitted 
that  a  picnic  was  not  a  picnic  unless  conducted  on 
alfresco  lines,  with  all  the  cooking  and  eating  done  out 
of  doors  by  the  picnickers  themselves.  Druro  under- 
stood that  she  objected  to  his  ranch  and  was  sorry  he 
had  spoken,  especially  as  some  of  the  others  looked  at 
her  with  understanding  eyes  also.  However,  she  was 
outvoted,  everyone  crying  that  if  she  liked  hard  work 
and  out-door  cooking,  and  spiders  and  ants  running 
over  the  table-cloth  and  mosquitoes  biting  her  ankles, 
she  could  have  them,  but  they  would  have  the  ranch. 
To  Druro's  surprise  and  relief,  she  laughed  and  gave 
in  quite  pleasantly.  Being  a  man,  he  could  not  know 
that,  at  that  very  moment,  she  was  dismally  deciding 
that,  considering  all  that  had  passed,  she  could  not 
possibly  go  to  Druro's  ranch. 

"  I  shall  have  to  be  taken  ill  at  the  last  moment, " 
she  reflected,  and  could  have  wept,  for  she  loved 
picnics,  and  Druro's  ranch  had  a  secret  call  for  her 
heart.  But  she  laughed  instead,  and  helped,  with  a 
cheerful  air,  to  draw  up  the  lists  of  those  who  were  to 


120  The  Leopard 

supply  cars,  chickens,  cakes,  crockery,  and  all  the 
other  incidentals  that  go  to  the  making  of  a  successful 
picnic.  The  tea-party  had  by  this  time  become  en- 
larged to  the  size  of  a  reception,  and  with  everybody 
talking  and  arguing  at  once,  no  one  (except  Gay) 
noticed  that,  after  a  little  quiet  conversation,  Mrs. 
Hading  and  Druro  withdrew  and  disappeared.  It 
transpired  later  that  they  had  ordered  an  early  lunch 
and  started  for  Selukine  in  the  Argyle. 

And  that  was  only  the  beginning  of  it.  In  the  weeks 
that  followed,  it  became  more  usual  to  see  Mrs.  Had- 
ing in  Lundi  Druro's  car  than  out  of  it. 

Gay,  staunch  to  her  resolve,  absented  herself  from 
the  festivity  at  Sombwelo.  It  was  no  great  exagger- 
ation to  plead  that  she  was  ill,  for  her  spirit  was  sick 
if  her  body  was  not.  But  no  one  spared  her  the  details 
of  a  successful  and  delightful  day.  It  seemed  that 
Druro  had  been  a  perfect  host  and  Mrs.  Hading  a 
graceful  and  gracious  guest.  And,  from  that  time 
forward,  never  a  day  passed  in  which  the  two  did  not 
spend  some,  at  least,  of  its  hours  together.  When 
Marice  was  not  by  Druro's  side  in  the  big  red  car, 
sometimes  learning  to  drive,  sometimes  just  tearing 
through  the  air,  en  route  to  some  mine  or  other  which 
she  wanted  to  see,  they  might  be  found  in  the  "Fal- 
con "  lounge,  playing  bridge  with  another  couple  or  just 
sitting  alone,  talking  of  London  lamp-posts.  Some- 
times they  played  two-handed  poker,  for  Marice  not 
only  sympathized  but  shared  with  Druro  his  passion 
for  cards.  Perhaps  this  drew  their  hearts  as  well  as 
their  heads  together.  At  any  rate,  to  lookers-on  they 
seemed  absorbed  in  one  another. 

Mrs.  Hading  essayed  skilfully  and  very  winningly 
to  draw  Gay  into  her  intimate  circle,  and  it  vexed  her 


The  Leopard  121 

to  realize  how  she  evaded  her  plans.  Berlie,  she  had 
already  subjugated  and  made  a  tool  of;  but  Gay  stood 
aloof  and  would  not  be  beguiled.  While  perfectly 
courteous  to  Mrs.  Hading  and  whole-heartedly  ad- 
miring her  beauty,  she  had  yet  distrusted  and  disliked 
her  from  the  first.  Now  her  dislike  deepened,  for  she 
saw  that  the  widow  was  harming  Druro.  She  kept 
him  from  his  work,  and  sympathized  and  pandered 
to  the  passions  that  already  too  greatly  obsessed  him. 
There  were  always  cocktails  and  cards  on  the  table 
before  them.  Druro  was  drawing  closer  round  him 
the  net  of  his  weaknesses  from  which  Gay  had  so 
longed  to  drag  him  forth.  Between  the  latter  and 
Lundi  Druro  there  now  existed  a  kind  of  armed  peace 
which  appeared  to  be  based,  on  his  side,  in  indifference, 
and,  on  hers,  in  pride.  There  was  often  open  antago- 
nism in  their  eyes  as  they  faced  each  other.  She 
despised  him  for  lingering  and  lagging  at  the  heels  of 
pleasure,  and  he  knew  it.  Sometimes,  when  he  was 
not  actively  angry  with  her,  he  thought  she  had  grown 
older  and  sadder  in  a  short  while,  and  wondered  if  she 
were  having  trouble  about  young  Derry,  who  was  up- 
country,  or  whether  old  Derek  was  going  the  pace  more 
than  usual  at  home.  It  must  be  these  secret  troubles, 
he  thought,  that  had  suddenly  changed  her  from  the 
laughing  girl  he  knew  into  a  rather  beautiful  but  cold 
woman.  Cold,  yes,  cold  as  the  east  wind!  Some- 
times her  clear  eyes  chilled  him  like  the  air  of  a  certain 
little  cold  hour  of  the  dawn  that  he  very  much  dreaded; 
it  was  a  relief  to  turn  away  from  them  to  the  warm 
and  subtle  scents  and  f  rondlike  ways  of  Marice  Hading. 
For  weeks  now,  he  had  divided  his  time  so  carefully 
between  Mrs.  Hading  and  poker  at  the  club,  that  there 
was  nothing  at  all  left  for  the  Leopard  mine.  His 


122  The  Leopard 

partner,  M.  R.  Guthrie,  commonly  known  as  "  Emma," 
sometimes  came  from  the  mine  to  look  for  him,  pe- 
dalling moodily  into  Wankelo  on  a  bicycle,  and  always 
pedalling  away  more  moodily  than  he  came.  He  was 
a  shrivelled-up  American  with  a  biting  tongue,  and 
the  only  man  in  the  country  from  whom  Druro  would 
take  back  talk. 

"What  is  this  wine-woman-and-song  stunt  you  are 
on  now,  Lundi?"  he  inquired,  late  one  night,  when  he 
had  cornered  Druro  in  the  club  with  a  small  but  select 
poker-party  of  the  hardest  citizens  in  the  country. 
Druro  gave  him  a  dark  glance. 

"That's  my  business,"  he  said  curtly. 

"Have  you  any  other  business?"  asked  Emma 
bitterly.  "You  don't  happen  to  own  a  mine,  I  sup- 
pose?" 

"What  are  mines  compared  to  jack-pots?"  inquired 
Druro  gravely.  "Besides,  what  are  you  on  that 
mine  for,  Emma?  A  decoration?  Or  do  you  think 
you  are  my  wet-nurse?  1  don't  remember  engaging 
you  in  that  capacity." 

Guthrie  rose,  offended. 

"All  right,  my  boy — go  to  blazes  your  own  way!" 

"I  can  get  there  without  leading-strings,  anyway," 
Lundi  retorted  cheerfully. 

"But  not  without  apron-strings,"  muttered  his 
partner,  departing  on  the  faithful  bicycle.  "  I  dunno 
what's  come  to  the  fellow!" 

In  truth,  Druro  hardly  knew  himself.  A  kind  of 
fever  had  taken  possession  of  him,  a  fever  of  unrest 
and  discontent  with  himself  and  all  things.  He 
couldn't  remember  how  it  began  or  when,  but  it 
seemed  to  him  that  life,  in  one  moment,  from  being 
interesting  and  vivid,  had  turned  old  and  cold  and 


The  Leopard  123 

tasted  like  a  rotten  apple  in  his  mouth.  And  he  did 
not  care  how  many  drinks  he  took  to  wash  the  flavour 
away.  He  knew  that  he  was  drinking  too  much  and 
neglecting  his  work,  and  jeopardizing  other  people's 
money  as  well  as  his  own  by  so  doing,  but  his  soul  was 
filled  with  a  bitter  carelessness  and  indifference  to 
these  facts.  He  was  anxious  not  to  inquire  too  deeply 
within  himself  on  the  matter  of  what  ailed  him,  being 
dimly  aware  of  a  something  at  the  back  of  his  mind 
that  could  inform  him  only  too  well.  He  wished  to 
avoid  all  discussion  with  that  something,  sitting  like  a 
veiled,  watching  figure,  waiting  for  some  unoccupied 
hour.  Up  to  now,  he  had  been  very  successful  in 
dodging  the  appointment,  but  he  had  premonition 
that  he  would  be  caught  one  of  these  days  soon — in 
some  little  cold  dawn-hour  perhaps. 

There  came  a  day  when  Mrs.  Hading  decided  to 
return  the  hospitality  shown  her  in  Wankelo  by  giving 
an  entertainment  of  her  own.  She  mentioned  her 
intention  lightly  to  Druro. 

"  I  really  must  try  and  arrange  to  give  a  little  jolly 
of  my  own  in  return  for  all  the  big  jollies  people  here 
have  given  me. " 

In  reality,  she  had  determined  on  something  in  the 
nature  of  "a  surprise  to  the  natives"  that  would  put 
all  their  little  picnics  and  dinner-parties  entirely  in  the 
shade,  and  duly  impress  not  only  Wankelo  but  Rho- 
desia and,  incidentally,  Lundi  Druro.  For,  after 
several  weeks  of  close  intercourse  with  the  latter,  she 
had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  she  might  do  very 
much  worse  than  marry  him.  More,  she  actually 
desired  to  do  so.  The  stimulus  of  his  insouciant  gaiety 
and  originality,  good  looks  and  unfailingly  good  spirits 
had  come  to  be  a  necessary  part  of  her  existence.  She 


124  The  Leopard 

needed  him  nbw,  like  a  bracing  cocktail  she  had  grown 
used  to  taking  so  many  times  a  day  and  could  no 
longer  do  without.  Besides,  the  Leopard  was  panning 
out  well,  at  the  rate  of  a  thousand  pounds  sterling  per 
month,  and  had  the  prospect  of  doing  far  better. 

These  were  good  enough  reasons  for  Mrs.  Hading's 
decision  that  Druro,  as  well  as  Wankelo,  should  be 
impressed  by  the  finished  splendour  and  grace  of  her 
"little  jolly."  She  intended  to  show  him  that,  when 
it  came  to  choosing  a  wife  who  could  spend  his  thou- 
sands graciously  and  to  the  best  effect,  he  could  never 
do  better  than  Marice  Hading.  To  which  end,  she 
concentrated  her  whole  mind  on  the  purpose  of  mak- 
ing her  entertainment  a  complete  and  conspicuous 
success. 

A  little  group  of  those  people  whom  she  favoured 
with  her  intimacy  were  called  into  council,  theoret- 
ically to  help  her  with  advice,  though  in  practice  she 
needed  little  of  them  but  admiring  applause.  They 
met  every  morning  in  a  corner  of  the  lounge  which, 
by  introducing  her  own  flowers,  books,  and  cushions, 
she  had  made  peculiarly  hers.  Here  over  morning  tea 
the  plans  for  her  "jolly"  were  projected  and  perfected, 
and  here  were  always  to  be  found  Berlie  Hallett  and 
her  mother,  Cora  Lisle,  Johnny  Doran,  Major  Ma- 
turin,  and  one  or  two  lesser  but  useful  lights. 

Druro,  though  he  did  little  more  than  decorate  the 
assembly  with  his  good-tempered  smile,  was  a  most 
necessary  feature  of  it,  and  Dick  Tryon  was  more 
often  than  not  to  be  found  there  also,  though  whether 
he  came  to  scofT  or  bless,  no  one  was  quite  certain. 
His  position  in  the  circle  of  Mrs.  Hading's  satellites 
had  never  been  clearly  defined.  He  was  supposed  by 
some  people  to  be  hopelessly  in  love  with  Gay  Liscan- 


The  Leopard  125 

non,  and  that  supposition  alone  was  enough  to  make 
Marice  Hading  anxious  to  attach  him  to  her  personal 
staff.  Besides,  he  was  an  interesting  man  and  a  clever 
lawyer — always  a  useful  combination  in  a  friend.  At 
any  rate,  he  was  one  of  those  who  helped  to  applaud 
the  programme  of  Mrs.  Hading's  jolly,  which  she 
eventually  decided  was  to  take  the  form  of  a  bridge 
tournament  followed  by  supper  and  a  dance. 

This  sounds  a  simple  enough  affair,  but,  under  Mrs. 
Hading's  treatment,  it  became  rarefied.  A  chef  for 
the  supper  had  been  commanded  from  Johannesburg, 
a  string  orchestra  for  the  dance  from  Salisbury,  and 
exquisite  bridge  prizes  were  being  sent  from  a  jeweller's 
at  the  Cape.  The  hotel  dining-room  was  to  be  trans- 
formed into  a  salon  for  the  card  tournament,  the 
lounge  decorated  as  a  ballroom,  and  an  enormous 
marquee  erected  for  the  supper. 

The  day  dawned  at  last  when,  all  these  arrange- 
ments being  completed,  there  was  nothing  for  the 
select  council  to  do  but  congratulate  each  other  on  the 
prospect  of  a  perfect  evening.  Druro,  however,  who 
had  for  some  days  been  showing  (to  the  initiated  eyes 
of  his  male  friends,  at  least)  signs  of  restlessness,  not 
to  say  boredom,  marred  the  harmony  of  this  propitious 
occasion  by  absenting  himself,  thereby  causing  the 
president  of  the  meeting  palpable  inquietude  and  dis- 
pleasure. She  missed  her  laughing  cavalier,  as  she 
had  a  fancy  for  calling  him,  from  her  retinue.  Plainly 
distraite,  she  sat  twisting  her  jewelled  fingers  and  cast- 
ing restless  glances  toward  the  door  until  certain 
emissaries,  who  had  been  sent  forth,  returned  with 
the  news  that  no  one  had  seen  Druro  since  eleven 
o'clock  the  night  before,  when  he  had  gone  off  in  a 
car  with  some  mining  men.  The  widow  hid  her  an- 


126  The  Leopard 

noyance  under  a  pretty,  petulant  smile  and  the 
remark: 

"He  must  be  given  a  penance  this  afternoon." 
After  which  she  abruptly  dismissed  the  audience  until 
tea-time. 

When  tea-time  came,  however,  with  its  gathering  in 
Mrs.  Hallett's  sitting-room  (the  lounge  being  in  pre- 
paration for  the  evening's  festivities),  there  was  still 
no  Druro.  Further  inquiry  had  elicited  the  fact  that 
the  men  he  had  gone  off  with  were  from  the  Glendora. 
The  Glendora  was  a  mine  owned  by  an  Australian 
syndicate  and  run  entirely  by  Australians,  a  hard- 
living,  hard-drinking  crowd,  who,  by  reason  of  their 
somewhat  notorious  ways  and  also  because  none  of 
them  had  wives,  were  left  rather  severely  alone  by  the 
Wankelo  community.  One  or  two  of  the  managers, 
however,  belonged  to  the  club,  and  it  was  with  these 
that  Druro  had  disappeared. 

Mrs.  Hading,  whose  petulance  was  not  quite  so 
pretty  as  in  the  morning,  rather  gathered  than  was 
told  these  things,  and  she  saw  very  plainly  that  she 
had  not  gathered  all  there  was  to  tell.  Men  have  a 
curious  way  of  standing  back  to  back  when  women 
want  to  find  out  too  much.  But  she  did  not  need  a 
great  deal  of  enlightening,  and  when  a  man  said  with 
careless  significance,  "  I  expect  he  has  forgotten  all 
about  tonight,"  and  the  other  men's  eyes  went  blank, 
she  guessed  what  was  at  the  bottom  of  it  all.  She 
had  learned  by  now  what  were  the  occasions  on 
which  Druro  so  poignantly/orgo/,  and  she  was  furious, 
not  because  gambling  might  be  bad  for  his  bank 
account  or  his  immortal  soul,  but  that  he  should  dare 
to  have  a  more  burning  interest  than  herself. 

"What  about  sending  someone  to  remind  him?" 


The  Leopard  127 

suggested  Maturin.  Marice  Hading  regarded  him 
coldly. 

"He  is  engaged  to  open  the  ball  with  me  this 
evening.  I  do  not  think  he  is  likely  to  forget." 
There  was  more  than  a  ring  of  arrogance  in  her  tone, 
and,  looking  straight  past  him  into  the  eyes  of  Gay 
Liscannon,  she  added  acridly,  "Whomsoever  he  may 
have  thus  distinguished  in  the  past." 

Gay,  who,  by  some  mischance,  had  happened  acci- 
dentally upon  the  meeting,  was  taken  off  her  guard 
by  this  direct  attack,  as  the  ready  flush  in  her  cheek 
clearly  told.  A  moment  later,  she  was  her  pale, 
calm  self.  But  Mrs.  Hading  saw  that  her  arrow 
shot  at  a  venture  had  drawn  blood.  She  really  knew 
nothing  of  Gay's  quarrel  with  Druro,  and  her  venture 
was  based  on  a  remark  Berlie  had  let  fall.  But  she 
was  aware  of  a  shadow  between  Gay  and  Druro  that 
her  sharp  and  curious  eyes  had  never  been  able  to 
penetrate,  and  that  infuriated  her.  Tryon,  lazily 
examining  his  shoes,  here  interposed  a  casual  remark. 

"  I  am  willing  to  prophesy  that  what  has  happened 
once  can  happen  again — in  spite  of  William  De 
Morgan." 

It  was  Marice  Hading's  turn  to  flush. 

"  If  I  do  not  dance  with  Mr.  Druro  tonight,  it 
will  not  be  because  he  is  absent, "  she  said,  with  cold 
arrogance. 

"Nous  verrons,"  he  answered  agreeably.  She  gave 
him  an  insolent  look.  H'e  had  declared  sides  at  last, 
and  she  knew  where  she  stood. 

Gay  dressed  for  the  dance  with  but  little  enthusiasm. 
Pride  made  her  put  aside  her  longing  to  stay  at  home 
with  her  own  wretchedness — pride  and  bitter  curiosity, 
but,  above  all,  a  haunting  fear  of  what  the  evening 


128  The  Leopard 

might  bring  forth.  She  had  a  strange  premonition 
that  something  final  and  fatal  was  going  to  happen 
to  her  love  for  Druro.  It  was  to  be  given  its  death- 
thrust,  perhaps,  by  the  announcement  of  an  engage- 
ment between  him  and  the  widow.  Surely,  Marice 
Hading's  significance  had  meant  that  if  it  had  meant 
anything!  This  fete  was  to  be  the  scene  of  her 
triumph.  She  meant  to  brandish  Druro  as  a  trophy 
— fastening  him  publicly  to  the  wheels  of  her  chariot. 

Strangely  enough,  what  Gay  dreaded  still  more 
was  that  Druro  would  not  turn  up  at  all.  She  felt  a 
miserable  foreboding  about  the  gang  at  Glendora. 
And  it  was  based  on  good  grounds.  They  had  once 
lured  her  brother  Derry  out  to  that  camp,  and  what 
he  had  told  her  of  his  experiences  there  had  left  her 
with  a  wholesome  dread  and  detestation  of  the 
Australians. 

"  I  wonder  I  got  out  with  my  skin, "  said  Derry. 
"They  rooked  me  right  and  left.  There  isn't  a  finer 
set  of  sharpers  outside  of  Mexico  City — and  the  whole 
gang  ready  to  eat  you  up  alive  if  you  show  by  the 
twitch  of  an  eyelash  that  you  are  'on'  to  them. 
There's  one  pirate  there — Capperne — who's  worse 
than  all  the  rest.  Nothing  can  beat  him.  You 
know  he's  sharping  you  all  the  time,  but  he's  so  slick 
you  can  never  catch  him  out.  And  it  wouldn't  be 
wise  to,  either." 

These  were  the  men  that  Druro  had  gone  out  to 
play  poker  with — Lundi  Druro,  with  his  love  of  fair 
play  and  easily  roused  temper  and  carelessness  of 
consequences.  It  was  a  heavy  and  apprehensive 
heart  that  the  girl  hooked  up  inside  her  ball  gown. 

The  "Falcon"  was  a  fairy-land  of  softly  shaded 
lights  and  flowers  of  every  shade  of  yellow  and  gold. 


The.  Leopard  129 

Few  flowers  except  those  of  the  hardiest  kinds  could 
be  got  in  any  quantity  at  Wankelo,  so  Mrs.  Hading 
had  cleverly  decided  to  use  only  those  of  one  colour, 
choosing  sunflowers,  marigolds,  and  all  the  little 
yellow  children  of  the  Zinnia  family.  These,  mingled 
with  the  tender  green  of  maidenhair  fern,  of  which 
quantities  had  been  obtained  from  Selukine,  massed 
against  walls  draped  with  green,  made  an  exquisite 
setting  for  her  entertainment  and  her  own  beauty. 
She  glided  here  and  there  among  the  amber  lights, 
welcoming  her  guests  and  setting  them  at  the  little 
green-clad  card  tables,  a  diaphanous  vision  of  gold- 
and-orange  chiffons,  her  perfect  neck  and  shoulders 
ablaze  with  diamonds,  and  her  little  flat-coiffed 
black  head,  rather  snakelike  on  its  long  throat, 
banded  by  a  chain  of  yellow  topazes. 

Everything  blended  in  the  picture  she  had  made 
for  herself,  and  the  picture  was  perfect  to  behold. 
But,  unfortunately,  the  person  whom  it  had  been 
created  chiefly  to  impress  was  missing.  Druro  had 
not  come. 

The  bridge  tournament  waned  to  an  end,  and  the 
dainty  and  expensive  prizes  were  awarded;  the  guests 
flowed  in  a  gentle,  happy  tide  to  the  supper  marquee 
and  partook  of  such  a  collation  of  aspics  and  salads, 
and  souffles  and  truffles,  and  such  a  divine  brew  of 
cup  and  amazing  brand  of  cocktails  as  Wankelo  had 
never  before  dreamed  of  in  its  philosophy;  then 
back  they  ebbed,  more  happily  and  hilariously  than 
they  had  flowed,  to  the  ballroom,  where,  on  the 
stroke  of  midnight,  the  special  string  orchestra  from 
Salisbury  strung  out  sweet,  tremolo  opening  bars  of 
the  first  waltz.  And  Druro  had  not  come! 

Mrs.  Hading  gracefully  surrendered  herself  to  the 


130  The  Leopard 

arms  of  a  great  man  who  had  been  obliging  enough  to 
drop  in  accidentally  by  the  evening  train  from  Bulu- 
wayo,  and,  floating  down  the  room,  opened  the  ball. 
Her  partner  was  a  very  great  man  indeed,  both  in 
South  African  and  English  politics,  and  it  was  a 
feather  of  no  small  jauntiness  in  Marice  Hading' s 
cap  that  she  had  been  able  to  secure  him  for  the 
vacant  seat  at  her  supper-table  and  afterward  beguile 
him  to  the  ballroom  and  into  asking  her  to  dance. 
His  presence  lent  a  final  note  of  distinction  to  an 
extraordinarily  successful  evening,  and  she  had 
every  reason  to  be  proud  and  triumphant — except 
one!  But  it  was  that  one  thing  that  poisoned  all. 
No  triumph  could  quench  her  rage  and  humiliation 
at  Druro's  defection. 

"  He  shall  pay !  He  shall  pay ! "  were  the  words  that 
beat  time  in  her  brain,  all  the  while  she  was  floating 
and  gliding  among  her  guests,  full  of  graceful,  weary 
words  and  charming,  tired  smiles,  the  only  colour 
in  her  face  showing  on  her  bitter  lips. 

"He  shall  pay  me  my  price  for  this,"  she  promised 
herself  softly,  "and  it  shall  not  be  a  light  one." 

(Hugh  Hading  had  paid  his  price  for  her  girlhood; 
Lundi  Druro  should  pay  for  the  rest  of  her  life!) 

Only  one  thing  could  put  her  right  with  her  own 
pride  and  before  the  little  world  which  had  witnessed 
the  slight,  and  that  she  would  exact — the  announce- 
ment that  he  was  hers,  body  and  soul,  to  do  with  as 
she  pleased.  That  the  honour  would  be  an  empty  one, 
this  evening's  deroute  would  seem  to  have  demon- 
strated; he  had  proved  once  more  that  he  was  no 
man's  man,  and  no  woman's  man,  either;  he  belonged 
to  his  sins,  and  his  weaknesses,  and  his  failings.  But, 
for  the  moment,  it  would  be  enough  for  Marice 


The  Leopard  131 

Hading  that  he  should  propose  to  her  and  be  accepted. 
Her  time  would  come  later — afterward.  There  were 
many  modes  of  recompense  of  which  she  was  past 
mistress,  many  subtle  means  of  repayment  for  inju- 
ries received.  Such  a  mind  as  hers  was  not  lack- 
ing in  refined  methods  of  inflicting  punishment.  It 
would  be  proved  to  him,  in  bitter  retribution,  that 
Marice  Hading  could  not  be  trifled  with  and  neglected 
— -forgotten  for  a  game  of  cards! 

In  the  meantime,  she  eased  her  anger  a  little  by 
snubbing  Tryon,  when  he  came  to  claim  a  waltz 
she  had  given  him  early  in  the  week.  Looking  at 
him  with  cool  and  lovely  disdain  as  she  leaned  on  the 
arm  of  the  great  politician  who  still  lingered  with  her, 
she  disclaimed  all  recollection  of  any  such  engagement. 

"  You  should  be  careful  not  to  make  such  mistakes, 
Mr.  Tryon,"  she  said  haughtily. 

"Soil!  The  mistake  is  mine  as  well  as  the  loss," 
he  murmured  gracefully,  knowing  very  well  what  was 
his  real  crime.  "  But  prophets  must  be  prepared 
for  losses.  In  olden  days  they  have  even  been  known 
to  lose  their  heads  for  prophesying  too  truly."  And 
on  that  he  made  a  bow,  and  returned  to  Gay,  whom 
he  had  left  in  their  sitting-out  place,  which  was  his 
car.  She  had  danced  but  little  all  the  evening  and 
seemed  lost  in  dark  thoughts. 

"Tired?"  he  asked,  leaning  on  the  door  beside 
her. 

"No;  but  I'm  sick  of  this  dance,"  she  said  fiercely. 
"Take  me  for  a  spin,  Dick." 

"  Right.  But  the  roads  are  pretty  bad  in  the  dark, 
you  know.'' 

Gay  pondered  a  moment. 

"The    Selukine    road    isn't    bad" — she    paused    a 


132  The  Leopard 

moment,  then  slowly  added,  "  and  the  road  to  Glen- 
dora." 

It  was  Tryon's  turn  to  ponder.  The  road  to  the 
Glendora  was  the  worst  in  the  country,  but  it  didn't 
take  him  long  to  read  the  riddle. 

"Come  on,  then!"  he  said  abruptly.  "Shall  I  get 
your  cloak?" 

"No;  let  me  wear  your  things,  Dick."  She  took 
up  a  big  motor-coat  and  deer-stalker  from  the  driving- 
seat  and  slipped  into  them.  The  rose-pink  gown 
disappeared  and  was  lost  under  the  darkness  of  tweed, 
and  the  cap  covered  her  bright  hair.  She  sat  well 
back  in  the  shadows  of  the  tonneau. 

Tryon  set  the  car  going,  climbed  moodily  into  the 
lonely  driving-seat,  and  steered  away  into  the  dark- 
ness just  as  the  music  stopped  and  a  crowd  of  dancers 
came  pouring  out  of  the  ballroom. 

The  Glendora  lay  west  of  the  town,  and  the  road 
to  it  ran  past  the  club.  As  luck  would  have  it,  a 
man  coming  from  the  latter  place,  and  pushing  a  bicycle 
before  him,  almost  collided  with  them,  causing  Tryon 
to  pull  up  short. 

"  Is  that  you,  Emma  Guthrie?"  he  called  irritably. 

"Yep!  "  came  the  gloomy  answer. 

"Seen  anything  of  Lundi?" 

"Nope!"  on-  a  deeper  tone  of  gloom.  Gay  touched 
Tryon's  shoulder. 

"  Make  him  come,  too,"  she  whispered. 

"I'm  just  taking  a  run  out  to  the  Glendora," 
announced  Tryon.  "Want  to  come?" 

"  I  do,"  said  Guthrie,  with  laconic  significance,  and 
climbed  in  beside  the  driver.  They  flipped  through 
the  night  at  thirty  miles  an  hour,  which  was  as  much 
as  Tryon  dared  risk  on  such  a  road.  The  Glendora 


The  Leopard  133 

was  about  ten  miles  off.  Gay,  furled  in  the  big  coat  and 
kindly  darkness,  could  hear  the  two  men  exchanging 
an  occasional  low  word,  but  little  was  said.  It  was 
doubtful  whether  Guthrie  knew  who  Tryon's  other 
passenger  was. 

In  time,  the  clanking  and  pounding  of  a  battery 
smote  their  ears,  and  the  twinkling  myriad  lights  of  a 
mining  camp  were  spread  across  the  darkness.  One 
large  wood-and-iron  house,  standing  alone  on  rising 
ground,  well  back  from  the  road,  was  conspicuously 
brilliant.  The  doors  were  closed,  but  lights  and  the 
sound  of  men's  voices  raised  in  an  extraordinary 
uproar  streamed  from  its  open,  unblinded  windows 
and  fanlights.  Abruptly  Tryon  turned  the  car  so 
that  it  faced  for  home,  halted  it  in  the  shadow  of  some 
trees,  and  jumping  out,  strode  toward  the  house, 
followed  by  Guthrie  and  Gay. 

Almost  as  they  reached  it,  the  door  was  flung  open, 
and  a  man  came  out  and  stood  in  the  light.  He  was 
passing  his  hand  over  his  eyes  and  through  his  hair 
in  an  odd  gesture  that  would  have  told  Gay  who  he 
was  ,  even  if  every  instinct  in  her  had  not  recognized 
Druro.  The  pandemonium  in  the  house  had  fallen 
suddenly  to  a  great  stillness,  but  as  Guthrie  and 
Tryon  reached  the  house,  it  broke  forth  again  with 
increased  violence,  and  a  numbei  of  men  rushed  out 
and  laid  hands  on  Druro  as  if  to  detain  him.  He 
flung  them  off  in  every  direction;  a  couple  of  them  fell 
scrambling  and  swearing  over  the  low  rail  of  the 
veranda.  Then,  several  spoken  sentences,  terse,  and 
clean-cut  as  cameos,  fell  on  the  night  air. 

"Come  on  home,  Lundi;  we  have  a  car  here." 

"I  tell  you  he  has  killed  Capperne!  Capperne  is 
dead  as  a  bone!" 


134  The  Leopard 

"All  right!"  came  Druro's  voice,  cool  and  careless. 
"  If  he's  dead,  he's  dead.  I  am  prepared  to  accept 
the  consequences." 

The  Australians  stood  off,  grouped  together, 
muttering.  Guthrie  and  Tryon  moved  to  either  side 
of  Druro,  and  between  them  he  walked  calmly  away 
from  the  house.  When  they  reached  the  car,  he 
took  the  seat  beside  Tryon,  Guthrie  climbed  in  next 
to  Gay,  and  they  drove  away  without  a  word  being 
spoken.  The  whole  nightmare  happening  had  passed 
with  the  precision  and  ease  of  a  clockwork  scene 
played  by  marionettes.  Now  the  curtain  was  down, 
and  nothing  remained  but  the  haunting,  fateful  words 
still  ringing  in  the  ears  of  them  all.  Small  wonder 
they  sat  silent  as  death.  As  the  car  entered  the 
precincts  of  the  town,  Druro  said  to  Tryon: 

"  I  must  go  to  the  police  camp  and  report  this 
thing,  Dick.  But,  first  drive  to  the  'Falcon/  will 
you?  I've  just  remembered  that  I  had  an  appointment 
there  and  must  go  and  apologize." 

They  drew  up  at  a  side  entrance  of  the  hotel  and 
Druro  stepped  out  and  turned  almost  mechanically 
to  open  the  door  for  those  behind.  So  far  he  had 
shown  no  knowledge  of  Gay's  presence,  but  he  now 
looked  straight  into  her  eyes  without  any  sign  of 
surprise.  He  held  out  his  hand  to  help  her  to  descend, 
and,  in  the  same  instant,  swiftly  withdrew  it. 

"I  forgot,"  he  said,  and,  for  an  instant,  stood  star- 
ing at  his  palm  and  then  at  her  in  a  dazed,  musing 
sort  of  way.  "There  is  blood  upon  it!" 

Gay  could  not  speak.  Her  heart  felt  breaking. 
It  seemed  to  her  that,  in  that  moment,  with  the 
shadow  of  crime  on  him,  he  had  suddenly  changed 
into  a  bright-haired,  innocent,  wistful  boy.  She 


The  Leopard  135 

longed,  with  an  infinite,  brooding  love  that  was 
almost  maternal,  to  shelter  and  comfort  him  against 
all  the  world.  But  she  could  do  nothing.  Even  if 
she  could  have  spoken,  there  was  nothing  to  say. 
Only,  on  an  impulse,  she  caught  the  hand  he  had 
drawn  back,  and,  for  a  moment,  held  it  close  between 
her  warm,  generous  little  palms.  Then  she  slipped 
away  into  the  darkness,  and  he  went  into  the  hotel, 
walking  like  a  man  in  a  dream. 


PART  1 1 

COLD-BLOODED  nerve,  otherwise  intrepid  cheek,  is  a 
much  admired  quality  in  that  land  of  bluffs  and 
blagues  called  Rhodesia.  Therefore,  when  Lundi 
Druro  walked  into  Mrs.  Hading's  ballroom  in  his  old 
grey  lounge  suit,  with  ruffled  hair  and  the  distrait 
eyes  of  a  man  dreaming  of  other  things,  and  pro- 
ceeded, in  casual  but  masterly  fashion,  to  detach  his 
hostess  from  the  tentacles  of  a  new  admirer,  Wankelo 
silently  awarded  him  the  palm  of  palms.  But  no 
one  who  saw  Mrs.  Hading's  face  as  she  walked  out 
of  the  ballroom  by  his  side  envied  him  his  job  of 
conciliation. 

However,  they  could  not  know  that  her  cold  looks 
were  for  their  benefit  rather  than  Druro's.  Banal 
upbraidings  would  not  bring  of?  the  coup  she  had 
planned,  and  she  did  not  intend  to  employ  them. 
When  she  and  Druro  were  out  of  earshot  in  a  far 
corner  of  the  veranda,  the  face  she  turned  to  him 
wore  nothing  on  it  but  an  expression  of  lovely  and 
tender  pain  that  he  found  much  harder  to  contend 
with  than  anything  she  could  possibly  have  said. 

Contritely  he  proffered  his  profound  apologies  and 
regrets.  But  when  all  was  said  and  done,  it  boiled 
down  to  the  same  old  lame  duck  of  an  excuse  that  was 
yet  the  simple  and  shameful  truth. 

"  I  forgot  all  about  it." 

Like  Gay  under  similar  circumstances,  she  was 
136 


The  Leopard  137 

infuriated  by  the  combined  flimsiness  and  sincerity 
of  the  plea.  But,  unlike  Gay,  she  was  too  clever  to 
give  herself  away  and  ruin  her  plans  by  an  outburst 
of  indignation.  She  only  fixed  her  sad  and  lovely 
dark  eyes  on  his  and  said  quietly: 

"Is  that  all  you  have  to  say  to  me,  Lundi?  With 
everyone  laughing  at  my  humiliation  and  disappoint- 
ment— my  foolishness!" 

He  flushed  at  the  use  of  his  name,  the  tone  of  her 
voice,  the  inference  in  her  words. 

"  I  am  most  frightfully  sorry, "  he  repeated,  deeply 
embarrassed.  "It  was  unutterably  caddish  of  me. 
I  can  never  forgive  myself,  or  expect  you  to  forgive 
me." 

"  I  think  you  know  by  now  that  I  can  forgive  you 
anything, "  she  answered,  in  a  low  voice. 

His  embarrassment  increased. 

"  I'm  not  worth  a  second  thought  from  any  woman," 
he  asseverated  firmly. 

"But  if  I  think*  you  are?"  There  was  a  little 
break  in  her  voice,  and  suddenly  she  put  out  her  hands 
toward  him.  "  If  I  cannot  help " 

"Mrs.  Hading,"  he  interposed  hastily,  "you  don't 
know  what  you  are  saying.  I  am  a  blackguard — a 
scamp,  unfit  to  touch  a  woman's  hand." 

" Let  me  be  judge  of  that,"  she  said. 

"  I  have  not  even  told  you  everything  about  to- 
night. When  you  hear  what  has  happened,  you 
won't  want  to  speak  to  me  again."  She  suddenly 
took  out  a  little  lace  handkerchief  and  began  to  cry. 
He  stared  at  her  with  haggard  eyes.  "  Do  you  know 
that  I  have  killed  a  man  tonight?"  he  said  sombrely. 

That  gave  her  pause.  Her  nerves  went  taut  and 
her  face  rigid  behind  the  scrap  of  lace.  Even  her 


138  The  Leopard 

cold  soul  balked  at  murder,  and  her  plans  of  mingled 
revenge  and  self-advancement  rocked  a  little.  She 
looked  at  him  direct  now,  with  eyes  full  of  horrified 
inquiry. 

"  I  did  not  mean  to  distress  you  with  the  story, " 
he  said.  "But  I  struck  a  man  over  the  card-table, 
and  they  say  he  is  dead." 

It  seemed  to  her  that  she  caught  a  sound  of  relief, 
even  triumph  in  the  statement — almost  as  though 
he  was  glad  to  have  such  a  reason  for  stemming  the 
tide  of  her  words,  and  not  taking  the  clinging  hands 
she  put  out  to  him.  Her  keen  mind  was  on  the 
alert  instantly.  What  was  at  the  bottom  of  it  all? 
Perhaps  the  man  was  not  dead.  Perhaps  this  was 
just  a  little  trick  of  Druro's  to  slip  the  toils  he  felt 
closing  round  his  liberty — her  toils!  Being  a  trickster 
herself,  she  easily  suspected  trickery  in  others.  Rapidly 
she  turned  the  thing  over  in  her  mind.  She  had  no 
intention  of  involving  herself  with  a  man  who  had  got  to 
pay  the  penalty  for  committing  a  crime — but  nothing 
simpler  for  her  than  to  repudiate  him  if  anything  so 
unpleasant  should  really  arise.  On  the  other  hand, 
in  case  he  was  juggling  with  the  truth,  she  must 
establish  a  hold,  a  bond  that,  being  a  man  of  honour, 
he  would  not  be  able  to  repudiate.  The  situation 
called  for  the  exercise  of  all  the  finesse  of  which  she 
was  mistress.  She  put  away  her  handkerchief  and 
looked  at  him  gravely. 

"There  must  be  some  dreadful  mistake." 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders  rather  wearily. 

"I  don't  think  so."  His  manner  inferred,  "And 
I  don't  much  care,  either." 

"But  you  must  care,"  she  said  urgently.  "You 
must  fight  it,  Lundi.  If  you  won't  do  it  for  your  own 


The  Leopard  139 

sake" — she  came  a  step  nearer  to  him— "  I  ask  you 
to  do  it  for  mine."  He  was  staring  moodily  into 
the  gloom  of  the  night  and  the  deeper  gloom  of 
his  own  soul.  "To  make  up  to  me  for  the  humili- 
ation you  have  put  upon  me  tonight,"  she  said, 
almost  in  a  whisper,  "  I  think  I  have  a  right  to  claim 
so  much." 

That  jerked  him  from  his  dreams.  He  looked  her 
straight  in  the  eyes. 

"  If  anything  1  can  say  or  do  will  make  up  to  you 
for  that,  you  will  have  no  need  to  claim  it,"  he  said 
firmly,  and,  bowing  over  her  hand,  took  his  leave. 
People  who  saw  him  go  thought  he  looked  more 
haggard  than  when  he  came.  But  this  was  accounted 
for  when,  within  the  hour,  news  of  the  happenings  at 
Glendora  sped  like  wildfire  through  the  town. 

Before  morning,  however,  there  were  certain  hope- 
ful tidings  to  mingle  with  the  bad,  and  Marice  Hading 
had  cause  to  congratulate  herself  on  her  foresight 
in  establishing  her  bond.  Capperne  was  not  dead. 
And  there  was  hope  of  saving  him.  Half  his  teeth 
were  knocked  down  his  throat;  in  falling  he  had  struck 
his  head  and  cut  it  open;  his  heart,  weakened  by  dissi- 
pation, had  all  but  reached  its  last  beat,  and  lung 
complication  had  set  in.  But  the  chances  were  that, 
being  a  worthless,  useless  life,  precious  to  no  one  but 
himself,  he  would  pull  through  and  live  to  "sharp" 
another  day.  The  doctors,  at  any  rate,  worked  like 
tigers  to  insure  this  end.  For  there  was  no  doubt 
that,  if  he  died,  the  consequences  must  be  extremely 
unpleasant  for  Druro.  It  was  highly  improbable 
that  the  latter  would  pay  the  penalty  with  his  life, 
but  a  verdict  of  manslaughter  against  him  could 
scarcely  be  avoided.  He  had  struck  Capperne 


140  The  Leopard 

down  after  a  violent  dispute  in  which  the  Australian, 
accused  of  sharping,  had  given  him  the  lie,  and 
Capperne's  friends,  the  only  witnesses  of  the  fracas, 
were  prepared,  if  Capperne  died,  to  swear  away 
Druro's  life  and  liberty.  As  it  was,  they  moved 
heaven  and  earth  to  have  him  put  under  arrest — 
"in  case  of  accidents" — but  their  efforts  were  crowned 
with  neither  appreciation  nor  success,  and  Druro 
went  about  much  as  usual,  careless,  amusing,  and 
apparently  not  unduly  depressed.  Still,  it  was  a 
dark  and  doubtful  period,  and  that  his  future  hung 
precariously  in  the  balance,  he  was  very  well  aware, 
and  so  were  his  friends. 

The  only  thing  noticeably  unusual  in  his  habits 
was  a  certain  avoidance  of  the  Falcon  Hotel  and  the 
society  of  womankind;  and  this,  of  course,  was  very 
well  understood.  It  was  natural  that  a  man  under 
a  storm-cloud  that  might  burst  any  moment  and 
blot  him  out  should  wish  to  keep  out  of  the  range 
of  women's  emotional  sympathy.  Men's  sympathy 
is  of  a  different  calibre.  Even  when  it  is  a  practical, 
living  thing  that  can  be  felt  and  built  on,  it  is  often 
almost  cold-bloodedly  inarticulate  and  undemonstra- 
tive, which  is  the  only  kind  of  sympathy  accept- 
able to  a  man  in  trouble,  especially  a  man  of  Druro's 
type,  who  did  not  want  to  discuss  the  thing  at  all,  but 
just  to  take  what  was  coming  to  him  with  a  stiff  lip. 

One  good  result  of  it  all  was  that  now,  at  last,  his 
mine  was  getting  a  little  attention.  Once  more  he 
donned  blue  overalls  and  a  black  face  and  embroidered 
his  pants  with  cyanide  burns.  And  Emma  Guthrie 
was  content,  or  as  content  as  Emma  Guthrie  could 
be.  Rumour  now  said  that  crushing  would  be 
commenced  on  the  mine  in  two  months'  time,  and 


The  Leopard  141 

that  ten  stamps  were  to  be  added  to  the  milling- 
plant  already  existing.  This  looked  good  for  Druro's 
financial  prospects,  however  gloomy  his  social  ones 
might  be.  But  he  never  talked.  Emma  Guthrie 
was  the  man  who  did  all  the  bucking  about  the  mine 
and  its  future.  Rumour  did  the  rest  handsomely, 
and  it  was  unanimously  accorded  that  fate  would  be 
playing  a  shady  trick  indeed  on  Lundi  Druro  if, 
just  when  his  future  was  painting  itself  in  scarlet 
and  gold  with  purple  splashes,  he  was  to  be  put  out 
of  the  game  by  the  death  of  a  waster  like  Capperne. 

On  the  day,  then,  that  Capperne  was  at  last  pro- 
nounced to  be  out  of  the  wood,  there  was  almost 
general  rejoicing  in  Wankelo.  The  little  township 
threw  its  hat  up  into  the  air,  and  everyone  burst  into 
bubbles  of  relief  and  gaiety.  In  the  club  and  hotels 
men  valiantly  "breasted  the  bar,"  vying  with  each 
other  in  the  liquid  celebration  of  Druro's  triumph 
and  the  defeat  of  the  enemy  at  Glendora,  and  all  the 
women  rushed  to  tea  at  the  "Falcon"  to  discuss  the 
news  and,  incidentally,  to  see  how  Mrs.  Hading  took 
it,  and  whether  any  further  developments  would 
now  arise  with  regard  to  herself  and  Druro. 

As  soon  as  Mrs.  Hading  realized  that  Druro  meant 
to  absent  himself  from  the  felicity  of  her  society  during 
his  period  of  uncertainty,  she  had  thought  out  a  pose 
for  herself  and  assumed  it  like  a  glove.  It  was  the 
pose  of  a  woman  who  withdraws  a  little  from  the 
world  to  face  her  sorrows  alone — or  almost  alone. 
A  few  admiring  friends  were  admitted  into  her  semi- 
devotional  retreat.  Mrs.  Hallett  was  allowed  to 
read  to  her  awhile  every  day,  and  Berlie  to  arrange 
her  flowers.  Major  Maturin  brought  her  the  English 
papers  and  any  news  that  was  going.  A  quiet  game 


142  The  Leopard 

of  bridge  was  sometimes  indulged  in,  but  Marice  spent 
much  of  her  time  reading  and  writing,  and  a  straight- 
backed  chair  with  a  cushion  before  it  and  a  beautifully 
bound  book  of  devotions  lying  on  it  hinted  at  deeper 
things.  A  certain  drooping  trick  of  the  eyelids  lent 
her  an  air  of  subdued  sadness  and  courage  that  was 
attractive.  A  pose  was  always  dearer  to  Marice 
Hading  than  bread,  and  this  one  gave  her  special 
pleasure — first,  because  it  was  becoming;  secondly, 
because  it  was  a  restful  way  of  getting  through  the 
hot  weather,  and,  thirdly,  because  it  conveyed  to 
people  the  idea  to  which  she  wished  to  accustom  them 
— that  she  and  Druro  were  something  to  each  other. 
She  was  no  longer  to  be  seen  in  the  lounge.  Having 
successfully  impressed  Mrs.  Hallett  with  her  sorrowful 
mien,  that  lady  had  placed  her  sitting-room,  the  only 
private  one  in  the  hotel,  at  Marice's  disposal,  and 
it  was  there,  surrounded  by  flowers  and  books  of 
verse,  that  she  received  the  few  friends  she  allowed 
to  see  her  and  wrote  a  daily  letter  of  great  charm 
and  veiled  tenderness  to  Druro.  He  nearly  always 
responded  with  about  three  lines,  making  one  note 
answer  three  letters,  sometimes  more.  Druro  was 
no  fancy  letter-writer.  He  could  tell  a  women  he 
loved  her,  fervently  enough,  no  doubt,  either  on  or 
off  paper,  if  the  spirit  moved  him.  But  he  never 
told  Marice  anything  except  that  he  was  all  right, 
and  chirpy,  and  pretty  busy  at  the  mine,  and  hoped 
to  see  her  one  of  these  days  when  the  horizon  looked 
a  little  clearer.  Brief  and  frank  as  were  these  missives, 
she  studied  them  as  closely  as  if  they  had  been  written 
in  the  hieroglyphics  of  some  unknown  language,  and 
had  often  nearly  bitten  her  underlip  through  by  the 
time  she  reached  the  end  of  them. 


The  Leopard  143 

With  the  growing  conviction  that  Capperne  would 
recover,  her  letters  to  Druro  grew  more  intimate  and 
perhaps  a  shade  insistent  on  his  over-sensitiveness 
in  absenting  himself  for  so  long  from  the  society  of 
his  best  friends.  It  was  natural  that,  when  the  good 
news  was  definitely  confirmed,  she  should  expect 
him  to  present  himself,  and  perhaps  that  was  why 
she  came  down  to  the  lounge  that  day  for  tea,  instead 
of  having  it  served  in  the  private  sitting-room  as 
usual. 

She  was  looking  radiant.  The  systematic  rest- 
cure,  combined  with  the  services  of  her  maid,  a 
finished  masseuse,  had  done  wonders  for  her,  and  a 
gown  of  chiffon  shaded  like  a  bunch  of  pansies  and  so 
transparent  that  most  of  her  could  be  seen  through 
it  successfully  crowned  her  efforts. 

Druro  felt  the  old  charm  of  lamp-posts  stealing 
like  a  delicate,  narcotizing  perfume  over  his  senses 
as  he  took  her  hand  and  listened  to  her  soft  murmurs 
of  congratulation.  After  all,  it  is  true  that  almost 
any  woman  can  marry  any  man  if  she  has  a  few 
looks,  a  few  brains,  and  the  quality  of  persist- 
ence. Besides,  Marice  had  him  safely  bonded.  The 
shrouded  figure  at  the  back  of  his  mind  that  was 
waiting  for  some  quiet  hour  in  which  to  discuss  the 
mess  he  was  making  of  his  life  would  have  to  be  nar- 
cotized, too,  or  denied  and  driven  forth. 

Gay  Liscannon  came  in  with  a  riding  party  of  noisy 
people,  who  clattered  over,  clamouring  for  tea  and 
clapping  Druro  on  the  shoulder  with  blithe  smiles. 
She  gave  him  a  friendly  hand-clasp  and  said: 

"Glad  to  see  you're  all  right  again,  Lundi." 

That  was  the  spirit  of  all  their  welcomes.  No  one 
said  openly:  "Hooray!  You're  out  of  the  jaws  of 


144  The  Leopard 

the  law."  But  they  welcomed  him  like  a  long-lost 
brother  turned  up  from  the  dead,  and  immediately 
began  to  talk  about  getting  up  some  kind  of  "jolly" 
for  him.  It  must  be  admitted  that  Rhodesians  are 
always  on  the  look-out  for  an  excuse  for  a  jolly,  but 
this  really  seemed  a  reasonable  occasion.  They  told 
him  he  looked  gloomy  and  needed  a  jolly  to  cheer 
him  up. 

"A  picnic  is  the  thing  for  you,"  said  Berlie  Hallett, 
who  loved  this  form  of  diversion  better,  even,  than 
flirting.  "  Let  us  give  him  a  picnic  in  his  own  district, 
Selukine." 

A  thoughtful  look  crossed  Marice  Hading' s  face. 

"What  about  his  own  mine?"  she  said.  "Can't 
we  come  and  picnic  there,  Lundi?  I  have  never 
seen  the  Leopard." 

The  idea  was  ardently  welcomed. 

"Yes — the  Leopard  mine!  We'll  take  our  own 
champagne  and  baptize  the  new  reef  and  Lundi's 
future  fortunes.  It  shall  be  the  great  Leopard  picnic 
— the  greatest  ever!" 

It  was  furthermore  suggested  that,  as  there  was  a 
moon,  it  should  be  a  moonlight  picnic  with  a  midnight 
supper  at  the  mine. 

Lundi  was  fain  to  submit,  whether  he  liked  it  or 
not.  He  wondered  a  little  what  Emma  Guthrie 
would  say  at  having  the  mine  invaded,  but  person- 
ally he  did  not  care  a  toss.  The  narcotizing  spell 
had  fallen  suddenly  from  him  again,  and  life  and 
his  future  fortunes  looked  uninterestingly  grey.  He 
became  aware  of  the  shrouded  figure  tapping  for 
attention  at  the  back  of  his  brain.  Gay  was  the 
cause  of  it,  somehow.  He  abruptly  got  up  to  go, 
saying  he  must  get  back  to  the  mine. 


The  Leopard  145 

"  Emma  will  want  some  talking  over  before  he  will 
allow  any  picnicking  around  there, "  he  said.  "  I 
think  I  had  better  go  and  start  on  him  right  away." 

"Oh,  don't  go  yet!"  they  cried,  and  Marice  Hading 
looked  at  him  chidingly.  But  he  had  no  heart  for 
their  gay  arrangements,  and  took  himself  off  after 
finally  hearing  that  the  date  was  fixed  for  two  nights 
later,  all  cars  to  be  at  the  "  Falcon"  at  eight  o'clock 
in  the  evening  and  the  start  to  be  made  from  there. 

Only  a  legitimate  reason  would  have  kept  Gay 
away  from  a  jolly  given  in  Drum's  honour.  But 
she  expected  to  have  that  reason  in  the  indisposition 
of  her  father,  who  had  been  ailing  for  some  time. 
She  was  not  sorry,  for  she  felt  a  shrinking  from  what 
the  picnic  might  bring  forth,  just  as  she  had  felt  on 
the  night  of  Mrs.  Hading's  dance. 

However,  fate  was  not  inclined  to  spare  her  any- 
thing that  was  due  to  her.  Colonel  Liscannon  was 
so  much  better  that  he  could  easily  be  left,  and, 
moreover,  an  old  crony  had  come  in  from  the  country 
to  spend  a  couple  of  days  with  him.  So  there  was  no 
chance  of  Gay's  evasion  without  a  seeming  rudeness 
to  Druro.  But  she  was  very  late  in  arriving  at  the 
"  Falcon, "  where  she  was  to  be  a  passenger  in  Tryon's 
car. 

At  the  last,  it  was  a  matter  of  ordering  something 
at  the  chemist's  for  her  father  and  sending  off  a 
telegram  that  detained  her,  and  she  did  not  reach  the 
hotel  until  nearly  a  quarter  to  nine.  Long  before 
she  got  there,  she  saw  that  all  the  cars  were  gone 
except  one  which  she  easily  recognized  as  Tryon's. 

"Dear  old  Dick!  He  is  always  to  be  relied  on," 
she  said,  and  had  a  half-finished  thought  that  she  would 
rather  be  with  him  that  night  than  any  one,  except 


146  The  Leopard 

Then  she  went  quickly  into  the  lounge,  where,  no 
doubt,  he  would  be  waiting,  and  found  him  indeed, 
but  sitting  around  a  little  table  with  coffee  and 
liqueurs  in  the  company  of  Druro  and  Mrs.  Hading, 
the  latter  looking  none  too  pleased. 

"Ah,"  said  she,  with  acerbity,  as  Gay  came  in, 
"at  last!  We  were  beginning  to  think  you  were 
never  coming." 

"But  why  did  you  wait  for  me?"  inquired  Gay, 
politely  bewildered.  "  I  thought  Dick ' 

"Some  idiot  has  walked  off  with  my  car,"  explained 
Druro.  "So  Tryon  is  taking  us  all." 

"And  we  are  waiting  for  petrol  as  well  as  you," 
smiled  Tryon;  "so  sit  down."  He  put  a  chair  for 
her  next  to  Mrs.  Hading,  but  that  lady,  after  a  swift 
glance  into  a  mirror  on  the  wall,  skilfully  manoeuvred 
her  seat  until  she  was  opposite  instead  of  next  to 
the  girl.  Gay,  in  a  little  white  frock  of  soft  mull, 
with  a  cascade  of  lace  falling  below  her  long,  young 
throat,  resembled  a  freshly-gathered  rose  with  all 
the  fragrance  and  dewiness  of  the  garden  of  Youth 
upon  her.  When  Marice  looked  at  her,  she  felt  like  a 
Borgia.  She  would  have  liked  to  press  a  cup  of  poison 
to  the  girl's  curved  red  lips  and  force  her  to  drink. 
In  that  glimpse  in  the  mirror,  she  had  seen  that  her 
own  face,  above  a  delicate  shroudy  scarf  with  long 
flying  ends,  rose  like  some  tired  hothouse  orchid, 
beautiful  still,  but  fading,  paling,  passing;  and  she 
hated  Gay's  youth  and  freshness  with  a  poignant 
hatred  that  was  like  the  piercing  of  a  stiletto.  She 
wondered  why  she  had  been  such  a  fool  as  to  wear 
that  gown  of  purplish  amethystine  tulle  tonight. 
It  was  a  colour  that  made  her  face  look  hard  and 
artificially  tinted.  True,  her  bare  neck  and  shoulders, 


The  Leopard  147 

which  were  of  a  perfection  rarely  seen  outside  of  an 
art  gallery,  showed  at  their  best  through  the  mazy 
shroudings,  and  her  throat  looked  as  if  it  had  been 
modelled  by  some  cunning  Italian  hand  and  sculp- 
tured in  creamy  alabaster.  Her  throat,  indeed,  was 
Marice  Hading's  great  beauty,  and  her  pride  in  it  the 
most  sinful  of  all  her  prides.  She  spent  hours  in  her 
locked  room  massaging  it  and  smoothing  it  with 
soft  palms,  working  snowy  creams  into  it,  modelling 
it  with  her  fine  fingers,  as  though  it  were  of  some 
plastic  material  other  than  flesh  and  blood.  She 
watched  for  the  traces  of  time  on  it  and  fought  them 
with  the  art  and  skill  of  a  creature  fighting  for  its 
life.  Indeed,  when  a  woman  makes  a  god  of  her 
beauty,  it  is  her  life  for  which  she  is  fighting  in  the 
unequal  battle  with  time. 

Night  was  naturally  the  time  at  which  this  rever- 
enced beauty  of  hers  shone  most  effectively  to  the 
dazzlement  of  women  and  the  undoing  of  men.  Day 
was  not  so  kind.  The  South  African  sun  is  ruthless 
to  exposed  complexions,  and  has  an  unhappy  way 
of  showing  up  the  presence  of  thick  pastes  and  creams 
which  have  been  worked  into  contours  in  danger  of 
becoming  salients.  So,  although  Marice  never  wore 
a  collar,  but  always  had  her  gowns  cut  into  a  deep  V 
both  back  and  front,  she  invariably  shrouded  herself 
with  filmy  laces  and  chiffons.  She  drew  these  about 
her  now  and  rose  wearily.  It  seemed  to  her  she  had 
noticed  Druro  looking  at  Gay  with  some  strange 
quality  in  his  glance. 

"  If  we  don't  make  a  move,  we  shall  never  get  there 
at  all,"  she  said  sharply. 

Everything  was  going  wrong  tonight.  Here  she 
was  stuck  with  two  people  whom  she  detested,  after 


148  The  Leopard 

specially  planning  to  make  the  drive  alone  with 
Druro! 

"Come  along;  I  expect  the  car  is  fixed  up  by  now," 
said  Tryon,  and  they  all  moved  out.  A  black  porter 
was  patrolling  the  stoep. 

"Has  my  boy  been  here  with  petrol  for  the  car?" 
asked  Tryon. 

"Yas,sar." 

"And  filled  it?" 

"Yas,sar." 

They  approached  to  get  in,  and  a  fresh  annoyance 
for  Mrs.  Hading  arose.  Druro  said  casually: 

"How  are  we  going  to  sit?" 

"You  are  driving,  of  course,"  stated  Marice,  in  an 
authoritative  tone. 

"No,"  said  Tryon  dryly;  "I  never  let  any  one 
handle  my  car  but  myself." 

Now,  nothing  would  make  Marice  renounce  the 
comfort  of  the  front  seat.  Even  if  she  would  have 
done  it  for  the  sake  of  sitting  with  Druro,  she  knew 
that  the  jarring  and  jolting  so  unavoidable  on  African 
roads  would  put  her  nerves  on  edge  for  the  evening. 
So  there  was  nothing  further  to  be  said,  but  she  felt, 
as  she  flung  herself  into  the  seat  beside  Tryon,  that 
this  was  verily  the  last  straw.  For  a  time  she  showed 
her  displeasure  with  and  disdain  of  Tryon  by  sitting 
half  turned  and  conversing  with  Druro,  who  was 
obliged  to  lean  forward  uncomfortably  to  answer  her 
remarks.  But  she  soon  tired  of  this,  for  the  strong 
wind  caused  by  the  car  cutting  through  the  air  tore 
her  flatly  arranged  hair  from  its  appointed  place  and 
blew  it  over  her  eyes  in  thin  black  strings.  This 
enraged  her,  as  the  dishevelment  of  a  carefully  ar- 
ranged coiffure  always  enrages  a  fashionable  woman. 


The  Leopard  149 

She  loathed  wind  at  any  time;  it  always  aroused  seven 
devils  in  her.  She  longed  to  box  Tryon's  ears.  But 
the  best  she  could  do  was  to  sit  in  haughty  silence 
at  his  side,  while  the  wind  took  the  long  ends  of  her 
scented  tulle  scarf  and  tore  it  to  rags,  fluttering  them 
maliciously  in  the  faces  of  the  two  silent  ones  behind. 
Every  now  and  then  Druro  mechanically  caught 
hold  of  these  ends,  crumpled  them  into  a  bunch,  and 
stuffed  them  behind  Mrs.  Hading's  shoulders,  but  a 
few  minutes  later  they  would  be  loose  again,  whip- 
ping the  wind.  Once,  when  he  was  catching  the 
flickering  things  from  Gay's  face,  his  hand  touched 
her  cheek,  and  once,  when  they  both  put  out  their 
hands  together,  they  clasped  each  other's  fingers  in- 
stead of  the  fragile  stuff.  But  they  never  spoke. 
And  their  silence  at  last  began  to  weigh  on  the  two  in 
front.  They  found  themselves  straining  their  ears 
to  hear  if  those  two  would  ever  murmur  a  word  to 
each  other.  And  if  they  did  not,  why  didn't  they  ? 

"Has  he  got  his  arm  round  her?"  wondered  Tryon 
savagely.  (He  too  had  counted  on  tonight  and  the 
long,  lonely  drive  with  Gay,  and  was  in  none  too 
pleasant  a  mood  with  life.) 

"Is  he  holding  her  hand?"  thought  Marice  Hading, 
and  ground  her  teeth.  "Has  there  ever  been  any- 
thing between  them?" 

But  Druro  and  Gay  were  doing  none  of  these  things 
— only  sitting  very  still,  and  thinking  long,  long 
thoughts.  And  whatever  it  was  they  thought  of,  it 
put  no  gladness  into  their  eyes.  Any  one  who  could 
have  peered  into  their  faces  in  the  pale  moonlight 
must  have  been  struck  by  the  similarity  in  the  expres- 
sion of  their  eyes,  the  vague,  staring  misery  of  those 
who  search  the  horizon  vainly  for  something  that 


150  The  Leopard 

will  never  be  theirs,  some  lost  city  from  which  they 
are  for  ever  exiled. 

The  African  horizon  was  wonderfully  beautiful 
that  night.  As  they  came  out  from  the  miles  of 
bush  which  surround  Wankelo  into  the  hill-and- 
valley  lands  of  Selukine,  the  moon  burst  in  pearly 
splendour  from  her  fleecy  wrappings  of  cloud  and 
showed  long  lines  of  silver-tipped  hills  and  violet 
valleys,  and,  here  and  there,  great  open  stretches  of 
undulating  space  with  a  clear  view  across  leagues 
and  leagues  to  the  very  edge,  it  seemed,  of  the  world. 
As  one  such  great  stretch  of  country  rolled  into  view 
from  a  rise  in  the  road,  Druro  spoke  for  the  first  time, 
in  a  low  voice,  vaguely  and  half  to  himself. 

"There  is  the  land  I  love — my  country!" 

With  his  hand  he  made  a  gesture  that  was  like  a 
salute.  After  all,  he  was  a  Rhodesian,  and  this  was 
his  confession  of  faith.  The  story  of  the  lamp-posts 
was  only  a  bluff  put  up  to  disguise  the  hook  Africa 
had  put  in  his  heart,  the  hook  by  which  she  drags  all 
those  who  love  her  back  across  the  world,  denying, 
reviling,  forswearing  her  even  unto  seventy  times 
seven,  yet  panting  to  be  once  more  in  her  adored 
arms.  All  Rhodesians  have  this  heart-wound,  which 
opens  and  bleeds  when  they  are  away  from  their 
country,  and  only  heals  over  in  the  sweet  veld  air. 

Gay  did  not  answer.  He  had  hardly  seemed  to 
address  the  remark  to  her;  yet  it  went  home  to  her 
heart  because  she,  too,  was  a  Rhodesian,  and  this 
was  the  land  she  loved. 

Suddenly  they  swept  down  once  more  into  a  tract 
of  country  thick  with  bush  and  tall,  feathery  trees. 
Here  the  rotting  timbers  of  some  old  mine-head 
buildings  and  great  mounds  of  thrown-up  earth  inked 


The  Leopard  151 

against  the  sky-line  showed  that  man  had  been  in 
these  wilds,  torn  up  the  earth  for  its  treasure,  and 
passed  on.  Near  the  road  an  old  iron  house,  that 
had  once  been  a  flourishing  mine-hotel,  was  now 
almost  hidden  by  a  tangle  of  wild  creepers  and  bush, 
with  branches  of  trees  thrusting  their  way  through 
gaping  doorways  and  windows. 

"This  was  the  old  Guinea-Pig  Camp.  It  is  'gone 
in'  now,  but  once  it  was  a  great  place — this  old  wilder- 
ness," said  Tryon  to  Mrs.  Hading,  and  misquoted 
Kipling. 

"They  used  to  call  it  a  township  once, 
Gold-drives  and  main-reefs  and  rock-drills  once, 
Ladies  and  bridge-drives  and  band-stands  once, 
But  now  it  is  G.  I." 

He  stopped,  and  the  car  having  reached  the  foot 
of  the  hill  that  led  out  of  the  valley  stopped,  too,  as 
if  paralysed  by  its  owner's  efforts  at  parody.  It  had 
been  jerking  and  bucking  like  a  playful  mustang  for 
some  time  past,  and  behaving  in  an  altogether  curious 
manner,  but  now  it  was  stiller  than  the  dead.  Tryon 
waggled  the  levers  to  no  avail,  then  flung  himself 
out  of  the  car  and  got  busy  with  the  crank.  Not  a 
move.  Druro  then  got  out  and  had  a  go  at  the 
crank.  No  good.  Thereafter,  the  two  made  a 
thorough  examination  of  the  beast,  but  poking  and 
prying  into  all  its  secret  places  booted  them  nothing. 
As  far  as  the  eye  of  man  could  see,  nothing  was 
wrong  with  the  thing  but  sheer  obstinacy.  It  was 
more  from  habit  than  a  spirit  of  inquiry  that  Druro 
finally  gave  a  casual  squint  into  the  reservoir.  Then 
the  mischief  was  out.  It  was  empty;  the  boy  had 
never  filled  it.  It  was  doubtful  whether  he  had  put 


152  The  Leopard 

in  any  petrol  at  all.  The  two  men  stared  at  each 
other  aghast. 

"Well,  of  all  the  rotten  niggers  in  this  rotten 
country!"  breathed  Tryon,  at  last,  and,  with  the 
words,  expressed  all  the  weight  of  the  white  man's 
burden  in  Africa,  mingled  with  rage  at  his  present 
powerlessness  to  smite  the  evil-doer.  Druro  grinned. 
It  was  not  his  funeral,  and,  to  the  wise,  no  further 
words  were  necessary.  But  Mrs.  Hading  had  not 
been  long  enough  in  Africa  to  be  wise.  This  final 
calamity  seemed  all  part  and  parcel  of  the  mismanage- 
ment of  the  evening,  and  she  did  not  care  to  conceal 
her  annoyance. 

"  I  cannot  imagine  any  one  but  a  fool  allowing 
himself  to  be  placed  in  such  a  predicament,"  she 
said,  looking  at  Tryon  with  the  utmost  scorn. 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders,  dumb  with  mortifica- 
tion. Druro,  smiling  with  his  usual  native  philosophy, 
now  got  his  portion. 

"Is  there  anything  to  do  besides  standing  there 
smirking?"  she  inquired  acridly. 

"  I  should  think  we  had  better  foot  it  to  the  Guinea- 
Pig."  To  do  him  justice,  he  had  been  thinking  as 
well  as  smirking,  but  Marice  was  in  no  mood  to  be 
just.  "A  fellow  called  Burral  lives  there  and  has  a 
telephone.  He  may  have  some  petrol.  All  may 
not  yet  be  lost!"  He  continued  to  smile.  Not  that 
he  felt  cheerful — but  the  situation  seemed  to  him  to 
call  for  derision  rather  than  despair. 

"Foot  it?  Do  you  mean  walk  through  this  wild 
bush?  Good  Heavens!  How  far  is  it?" 

"Only  about  a  mile  or  so,  and  there  is  quite  a  good 
path.  Still,  if  you  think  it  better  to  stay  here  in  the 
car  with  Tryon  while  I  go 


The  Leopard  153 

"No;  I'll  go,"  said  Tryon  hastily. 

"No  you  don't,"  persisted  Druro.  "I  know  the 
way  better  than  you  do."  But  Mrs.  Hading  put  an 
end  to  the  argument  as  to  who  should  escape  her 
recriminations. 

"  I  refuse  to  be  left  in  this  wild  spot  with  any  one, " 
she  declared,  and  flung  one  last  barb  of  hatred  at 
Tryon.  "How  could  you  be  such  a  fool?" 

But  Tryon's  withers  could  be  no  further  wrung. 
He  merely  felt  sorry  for  Druro.  The  widow  was 
showing  herself  to  be  no  saint  under  affliction.  Not 
here  the  bright  companion  on  a  weary  road  who  is 
better  than  silken  tents  and  horse-litters! 

They  started  down  the  path  to  Burral's,  Druro 
and  Mrs.  Hading  ahead,  Gay  and  Tryon  following  at  a 
distance  too  short  not  to  hear  the  widow's  voice  still 
engaged  in  acrid  comment. 

"What  a  fuss  to  make  about  nothing!"  said  Gay, 
a  trifle  disdainfully.  "I'm  afraid  Africa  won't  suit 
her  for  long,  if  that's  how  she  takes  incidents  of 
every-day  life." 

"I  don't  think  she'll  suit  Africa,"  rejoined  Tryon 
savagely.  "Still,  I'm  not  denying  that  I  am  a  first- 
class  fool  to  have  trusted  that  infernal  nigger.  I 
could  kick  myself." 

"  Kick  the  nigger  instead,  tomorrow, "  laughed 
Gay,  adding  in  the  Rhodesian  spirit,  "what  does  it 
matter,  anyway?" 

The  path  now  became  narrower  and  overhung 
with  wandering  branches  and  creepers.  The  bram- 
bles seemed  to  have  a  special  penchant  for  Mrs. 
Hading's  flying  ends  of  tulle  and  lace,  and  she  spent 
most  of  her  time  disengaging  herself  while  Druro 
went  ahead,  pushing  branches  out  of  the  way.  Poor 


154  The  Leopard 

Marice!  Her  feet  ached  in  their  high-heeled  shoes, 
and  her  French  toilette  was  created  for  a  salon  and 
not  out-of-door  walking.  Truly,  she  was  no  veld- 
woman.  What  came  as  a  matter  of  course  to  Gay 
was  a  tragedy  to  her. 

"How  stupid!     How  utterly  imbecile!"  she  mut- 
tered bitterly.     "A  hateful  country — and  idiots  of 


men! 

"Cheer  up!"  said  Druro,  with  an  equability  he 
did  not  feel.  Nothing  bored  him  more  than  bad 
temper.  "We'll  soon  be  dead — I  mean,  we'll  soon 
be  at  Burral's." 

"I  find  your  cheerfulness  slightly  brutal,"  she 
remarked  cuttingly,  "and  the  thought  of  Burral's 
does  not  fill  me  with  any  delight." 

"I'm  sorry,"  he  began,  but  his  apology  and  the 
stillness  of  the  night  were  both  destroyed  by  a  sudden 
loud  crack  of  a  rifle. 

"By  Jove!  Who's  that,  I  wonder?"  exclaimed  Druro. 
"There's  nothing  much  to  shoot  about  here."  Then, 
to  Mrs.  Hading,  "Stand  still  a  minute — will  you? — 
while  I  reconnoitre."  He  went  a  few  yards  ahead 
and  gave  a  halloo.  They  all  stood  still,  listening, 
until  the  call  was  returned  in  a  man's  voice  from 
somewhere  not  far  off.  At  the  same  time,  a  soft 
cracking  of  bushes  was  heard  near  at  hand. 

"It  must  be  Burral  out  after  a  buck!"  called  out 
Tryon.  He  and  Gay  were  still  some  way  behind. 
Marice  half-way  between  them,  and  Druro  was  ap- 
parently trying  to  disentangle  her  flickering,  fluttering 
chiffons  from  a  fresh  engagement  with  the  bushes 
when  the  terrible  thing  happened.  The  lithe,  speckled 
body  of  a  leopard  came  sailing,  with  a  grace  and 
swiftness  indescribable,  through  the  air  and,  leaping 


The  Leopard  155 

upon  the  fluttering  figure,  bore  her  to  the  ground. 
A  scream  of  terror  and  anguish  rent  the  night,  and 
Gay  and  Tryon,  galvanized  by  horror,  powerless 
though  they  were  to  contend  with  the  savage  brute, 
rushed  forward  to  the  rescue.  But  Druro  was  there 
before  them.  They  saw  him  stoop  down  and  catch 
the  huge  cat  by  its  hind  legs,  and,  with  extraordinary 
power,  swing  it  high  in  the  air.  Snarling  and  spitting, 
it  twisted  its  flexible  body  to  attack  him  in  turn, 
and,  even  as  it  went  hurtling  over  his  head  into  the 
bush  behind,  it  reached  out  a  paw  and  clawed  him 
across  the  face.  At  the  same  moment,  a  man  with  a 
gun  came  crashing  through  the  undergrowth,  followed 
the  flying  body  of  the  leopard  into  the  bush,  and  with 
two  rapid  shots  gave  the  beast  its  quietus.  Reeking 
gun  in  hand,  he  returned  to  the  party  in  the  pathway. 

"Got  the  brute  at  last,"  he  panted.  "Only 
wounded  him  the  first  shot;  that's  why  he  came  for 
you  people.  My  God!  Who's  hurt  here?" 

No  one  answered.  Mrs.  Hading  lay  moaning  ter- 
ribly on  the  ground,  with  Tryon  and  Gay  bending  over 
her.  Druro  was  stumbling  about  like  a  drunken  man. 

"Is  it  you,  Lundi  Druro?  Did  that  devil  get  you, 
too?  Where  are  you  hurt?"  ^ 

"It's  Burral,  isn't  it?"  said  Druro  vaguely.  "Yes; 
I  got  a  flick  across  the  eyes.  Never  mind  me.  Get 
that  lady  to  your  place,  Burral,  and  telephone  to 
Selukine.  Tell  them  to  send  a  car  and  a  doctor  and 
to  drive  like  mad." 

"My  throat — oh,  my  throat!"  keened  Marice 
Hading.  Tryon  supported  her.  Gay  was  tearing 
her  white  skirt  into  strips  and  using  them  for  band- 
ages. Druro  came  stumbling  over  to  them 

"For  God's  sake,  get  her  to  Burral's  place,  Dick!" 


156  The  Leopard 

said  he.  "Burral's  wife  is  a  nurse  and  will  know 
what  to  do.  Can  you  two  fellows  carry  her?  1 
would  help  you — but  I  can't  see  very  well.  I'll 
come  on  behind." 

Gay  helped  to  lift  Marice  into  the  two  men's  arms, 
and  they  went  ahead  with  their  moaning  burden; 
then  she  came  back  to  Druro,  who  was  staggering 
vaguely  along. 

"  Let  me  help  you,  Lundi.     Lean  on  me." 

He  put  out  an  arm,  and  she  caught  it  and  placed 
it  around  her  shoulders. 

"I  can't  see,  Gay,"  he  said,  in  a  voice  that  was 
quite  steady  yet  had  in  it  some  quality  of  terrible 
apprehension.  She  peered  into  his  face.  The  moon 
had  become  obscured,  but  she  could  see  that  his  eyes 
were  wide  open  with  torn  lids.  There  was  a  great 
gash  down  his  cheek. 

"Come  quickly!"  she  cried,  her  voice  trembling  with 
tears.  "Oh,  come  quickly,  Lundi!  We  must  bathe 
and  dress  your  wounds  as  soon  as  possible.  Leopard 
wounds  are  terribly  poisonous." 

"All  right,"  he  said.  "Sure  you  don't  mind  my 
leaning  on  you?  I  hope  they  get  a  doctor  at  once 
for  Mrs.  Hading." 

They  went  forward  slowly,  he  taking  curiously 
uneven  steps.  She  was  tall,  but  he  had  to  stoop  a 
little  to  keep  his  hold  on  her. 

"There  hasn't  been  a  leopard  in  these  parts  for 
nearly  two  years,"  he  mused.  "The  last  was  shot 
on  my  mine  the  day  we  struck  the  reef — that  is  why 
we  called  it  the  Leopard.  You  remember,  Gay? 
Do  you  think  Mrs.  Hading  is  badly  wounded?" 

"Her  throat  and  chest  are  very  much  torn,  but  I 
don't  think  the  wounds  are  deep." 


The  Leopard  157 

"Poor  woman!    Good  Lord;  what  bad  luck!" 

"Try  and  hurry,  Lundi." 

"  But  I  can't  see.  Perhaps  if  I  could  wipe  the 
blood  out  of  my  eyes,  Gay — where  the  deuce  is  my 
handkerchief?" 

"  Here  is  mine — let  me  do  it  for  you.  Sit  down  for 
a  moment  on  this  ant-heap." 

She  knelt  by  his  side  and  gently  wiped  away  the 
blood.  By  the  sweat  that  was  pouring  down  his  face, 
she  knew  that  he  must  be  suffering  intense  pain,  and 
was  almost  afraid  to  touch  the  wounded  eyes. 

"Is  that  better?  Can  you  see  now?"  she  asked 
fearfully. 

"No,"  he  said  quietly.  There  was  a  moment  of 
anguished  silence  between  them,  then  he  laughed. 
"Cheerful  if  I  am  going  to  be  blind!" 

The  words  tore  her  heart  in  two,  appealing  to  all 
that  was  tender  and  noble  in  her  nature,  and  to  that 
brooding  maternal  love  that  was  almost  stronger  in 
her  than  lover's  love.  She  seemed,  as  once  before 
when  trouble  was  on  him,  to  see  him  as  a  bright- 
haired  boy  with  innocent  eyes,  whom  life  had  led 
astray,  but  who  was  ready  with  a  laugh  on  his  lips 
to  face  the  worst  fate  would  do.  And  she  cried  out, 
with  a  great  cry,  tenderly,  brokenly: 

"No,  no,  Lundi;  you  shall  not  be  blind!" 

She  put  her  arms  round  him  as  if  to  ward  off  the 
powers  of  darkness  and  evil,  and  he  let  his  bloody  face 
rest  against  the  soft  sweetness  of  her  breast.  Leaning 
there,  he  knew  he  was  home  at  last.  Her  warm 
tears,  falling  like  gentle  rain  upon  his  wounded  eyes, 
slipped  down  into  his  heart,  into  his  very  soul,  cleans- 
ing it,  washing  away  the  shadows  that  had  been 
between  them.  Now  he  knew  what  the  shrouded 


158  The  Leopard 

figure  at  the  back  of  his  mind  had  waited  for  so  long 
to  say  to  him — that  he  loved  this  girl  and  should  make 
his  life  worthy  of  her.  He  had  always  loved  her, 
but  had  been  too  idle  and  careless,  too  fond  of  the 
ways  and  pleasures  of  men  to  change  his  life  for  her. 
Now  that  he  held  her  in  his  arms,  and  could  feel  the 
blaze  of  her  love  burning  through  the  walls  of  her, 
meeting  the  flame  in  his  own  heart,  it  was  too  late. 
Fate,  with  lightnings  in  her  hand,  had  stepped  between 
them,  and  a  woman  who  held  his  promise  intervened. 

"Gay,"  he  said  gently,  her  name  felt  so  sweet  on 
his  lips,  "by  a  terrible  mistake  I  have  destroved  your 
happiness  and  mine.  Forgive  me." 

"There  is  no  question  of  forgiveness,  Lundi, "  she 
whispered;  "I  will  help  you  to  stand  by  it." 

He  held  up  his  blurred  eyes  and  torn,  bleeding  lips, 
and  she  kissed  him  as  one  might  kiss  the  dead,  in 
exquisite  renouncement  and  farewell.  Only  that  the 
quick  are  not  the  dead — and  cannot  be  treated  as 
such.  A  more  poignant  misery  waked  in  both  their 
hearts  with  that  kiss.  He  could  not  see  her — that 
was  terrible — but  the  satiny  warmth  of  her  mouth 
was  so  dear,  so  exquisitely  dear!  He  suddenly  re- 
membered her  as  she  was  that  night  in  her  little  rose- 
leaf  gown  with  all  the  dewdrops  twinkling  on  her. 
He  wondered  if  he  would  ever  see  her  again  in  all  her 
beauty. 

"  You  were  so  sweet  that  night  of  the  dance,  Gay, " 
he  said,  "in  your  little  pinky  gown,  with  the  dewdrops 
winking  on  you!" 

She  understood  that  he  was  wondering  if  he  should 
ever  see  her  again. 

"You  shall — you  shall!"  she  cried.  "Oh,  hurry! 
Come  quickly!  Let  us  get  to  the  house  and  to  help." 


The  Leopard  159 

The  serene  and  careless  philosophy  characteristic 
of  him  came  back. 

"If  I  am  to  be  blind,  all  right,"  he  said  quietly. 
"  I'll  accept  it  without  a  kick,  because  of  this  hour." 

Once  more  they  stumbled  deviously  and  slowly 
on.  A  light  showed  nearer  now,  in  a  house  window, 
and  presently  the  other  two  men  were  on  their  way 
to  meet  them  with  lanterns  and  a  brandy-flask.  In 
a  short  time,  Druro  was  established  in  Mrs.  Burral's 
sitting-room,  having  his  eyes  bathed  and  bandaged 
by  her  skilful  hands. 

"What  about  Mrs.  Hading?"  had  been  his  first 
question.  Marice's  low  moans  could  be  plainly 
heard  from  behind  the  curtain  which  divided  the  one 
room  of  the  little  iron  house. 

"  Her  throat  and  shoulders  are  very  much  lacerated," 
said  Mrs.  Burral.  "  I  think  we  have  avoided  the 
danger  of  blood-poisoning  for  you  both,  as  I  was  able 
to  clean  the  wounds  so  quickly  with  bichloride. 
But  she  will  be  dreadfully  scarred,  poor  thing!  And 
you,  Mr.  Druro,  I'm  afraid — I'm  afraid  your  eyes 
are  badly  hurt." 

It  seemed  years  to  them  all,  though  it  was  scarcely 
more  than  half  an  hour  before  assistance  came  from 
Selukine.  All  tragedies  take  place  in  the  brain,  it 
has  been  said,  and  poignant  things  were  happening 
behind  several  foreheads  during  that  bad  half-hour 
of  waiting.  Marice  Hading,  lying  on  Mrs.  Burral's 
bed,  hovered  over  by  that  kind  woman,  was  suffering 
more  acutely  in  the  thought  of  her  ravaged  beauty 
than  from  the  pain  of  her  wounds.  Druro's  bandaged 
eyes  saw  with  greater  clearness  down  the  bleak  avenues 
of  the  future  than  they  had  ever  seen  in  health. 
Tryon  was  afraid  to  look  at  Gay.  He  was  outwardly 


160  The  Leopard 

attentive  to  Burral's  tale  of  the  leopard's  depreda- 
tions— chickens  torn  from  the  roost,  a  mutilated 
foal,  a  half-eaten  calf — and  of  the  final  stalking  and 
unlucky  wounding  of  the  beast,  rendering  it  mad 
with  the  rage  to  attack  everything  it  met;  but  his 
brain  was  occupying  itself  with  a  thought  that  ran 
round  and  round  in  it  like  a  squirrel  in  a  cage — the 
thought  that  Gay  was  lost  to  him  for  ever.  He  had 
seen  her  looking  at  Lundi  Druro  with  all  her  tortured 
soul  in  her  eyes.  Now  she  stood  at  the  window, 
staring  into  the  night. 

When,  at  last,  the  whir  of  motor-wheels  was  heard 
on  the  far-off  road,  each  of  them  hastened  to  re- 
capture their  wretched  minds  and  drag  them  back 
from  the  lands  of  desolation  in  which  they  wandered, 
to-  face  once  more  the  formalities  of  life  behind 
life's  mask  of  convention.  There  came  a  sound  of 
many  voices — subdued,  deploring,  anxious,  inquiring. 
The  picnickers  had  heard  of  the  accident  and  were 
returning  in  force  to  succour  the  lost  ones.  It  was 
a  sorry  ending  to  the  great  Leopard  picnic. 

Mrs.  Hading  and  Druro  were  driven  to  the  Wankelo 
Hospital,  and  doctors  and  nurses  closed  in  on  them. 
Specialists  came  from  Buluwayo  and  the  Cape,  and, 
after  a  time  of  waiting,  it  was  known  that  the  danger 
of  blood-poisoning  was  past  for  both  of  the  victims. 
But  whether  Lundi  Druro  was  to  walk  in  darkness 
for  the  rest  of  his  days  could  not  be  so  quickly  told, 
or  what  lay  behind  the  significant  silence  concern- 
ing Mrs.  Hading' s  injuries.  It  was  known  that  her 
condition  was  not  dangerous,  but  she  saw  no  one, 
and,  in  the  private  ward  she  had  engaged,  she  sur- 
rounded herself  with  nurses  whose  business  it  was  not 


The  Leopard  161 

to  talk,  and  doctors,  even  in  Rhodesia,  do  not  gratify 
the  inquiries  of  the  merely  curious.  So,  for  a  long 
period  of  waiting,  no  one  quite  knew  how  the  tragedy 
was  all  to  end. 

In  another  part  of  the  hospital,  Druro  sat  in  his 
room  with  bandaged  eyes  and  Toby  on  his  knees, 
gossiping  with  the  friends  who  came  to  beguile  his 
monotony,  giving  no  outward  sign  that  hope  had 
been  dragged  from  his  heart  as  effectively  as  light 
had  been  wiped  from  his  eyes.  From  the  black 
emptiness  in  which  he  sat,  he  sent  Marice  Hading  a 
daily  message  containing  all  the  elements  of  a  mental 
cocktail — a  jibe  at  fate,  a  fleer  at  leopards  in  general, 
and  a  prophecy  of  merrier  times  to  come  as  soon  as 
they  were  out  of  their  present  annoyances.  In  reply, 
she  wrote  guarded  little  notes  (that  were  read  to  him 
by  his  nurse),  making  small  mention  of  her  own  in- 
juries but  seeming  feverishly  anxious  concerning  his 
sight.  All  he  could  tell  her  was  that  he  awaited 
the  arrival  and  verdict  of  Sir  Charles  Tryon,  the 
famous  eye-specialist,  now  somewhere  on  his  way 
between  Madeira  and  Wankelo.  It  was  Dick  Tryon, 
who,  knowing  that  his  brother  was  taking  a  holiday 
at  Madeira,  had  cabled  asking  for  his  services  for 
Druro. 

Poor  Dick  Tryon!  He  blamed  himself  bitterly 
for  the  whole  catastrophe  on  the  grounds  that,  if  he 
had  only  looked  into  the  petrol-tank  instead  of  taking 
a  Kafir's  word,  the  car  would  never  have  been  held 
up  or  the  encounter  with  the  leopard  occurred.  It 
was  no  use  Lundi  Druro' s  telling  him  that  such 
reasoning  manifested  an  arrogant  underrating  of  the 
powers  of  destiny. 

"  You  are  a  very  clever  fellow,  Dick,  but  even  you 


1 62  The  Leopard 

can't  wash  out  the  writing  on  the  wall,"  philosophized 
the  patient,  from  behind  his  bandage,  "nor  scribble 
anew  on  the  tablet  of  Fate,  which  is  hung  round  the 
neck  of  every  man.  If  the  old  hag  meant  me  to  be 
blind,  she'd  fixed  me  all  right  without  your  assistance." 

But  Tryon  could  not  be  reasoned  with  in  this  wise. 
Perhaps  it  was  the  shipwreck  in  Gay's  eyes  that 
would  not  let  him  rest.  Druro  could  not  see  that; 
but  it  was  part  of  Dick  Tryon's  penance  to  witness 
it  every  day  when  he  fetched  Gay  and  her  father  in 
his  car  to  visit  the  hospital.  She  always  came  laden 
with  flowers  and  cheery  words,  and  left  an  odour  of 
happiness  and  hope  behind  her.  But  Tryon  had  seen 
what  was  in  her  eyes  that  night  at  Burral's,  and  behind 
all  her  hopeful  smiling  he  saw  it  there  still.  He 
realized  that  she  and  Druro  had  found  each  other  in 
the  hour  of  tragedy,  and  that  for  him  there  was  no 
role  left  but  that  of  spectator — unless  he  could  prove 
himself  a  friend  by  helping  them  to  each  other's 
arms,  in  spite  of  Marice  Hading.  As  for  Druro  and 
Gay,  they  had  never  been  alone  together  since  that 
night — and  never  meant  to  be.  They  had  had  their 
hour. 

Another  of  Tryon's  self-imposed  jobs  was  to  motor 
to  Selukine  and  bring  back  Emma  Guthrie  to  see  his 
partner.  For  there  were  moments  when  Druro  could 
stand  no  one's  society  so  well  as  the  bitter-tongued 
American's. 

"Go  and  bring  in  Emma  to  say  a  few  pleasant 
words  all  round, "  he  would  enjoin,  and  Emma  would 
come,  looking  like  a  wounded  bear  ready  to  eat  up 
everything  in  sight.  But,  strange  to  say,  after  the 
first  two  or  three  visits,  his  words  were  sweeter  than 
honey  in  the  honeycomb,  and  all  his  ways  were 


The  Leopard  163 

soothing  and  serene.  He  had  nothing  but  good  news 
to  dispense.  This  novelty  first  amused  then  exasper- 
ated Druro,  and  he  ended  up  by  telling  Guthrie  to 
clear  out  of  the  hospital  and  never  come  back. 

Emma  did  come  back,  however,  and  every  time  he 
showed  his  face,  it  was  to  bring  some  fresh  tale  of  the 
sparkling  fortunes  hidden  in  the  bosom  of  his  Golconda. 
The  mine  was  a  brick,  a  peach,  a  flower.  Zeus  drop- 
ping nightly  showers  of  gold  upon  Danae  was  nothing 
to  the  miracles  going  on  at  the  Leopard. 

One  evening  after  dinner,  while  Druro  was  sitting 
alone  with  his  own  dark  thoughts,  a  message  was 
brought  to  him — a  message  that  Mrs.  Hading  would 
be  glad  to  see  him.  It  appeared  that  she  had  been 
up  and  about  her  room  for  some  days,  and  was  as 
bored  as  he  with  her  own  society. 

Leaning  on  the  arm  of  his  nurse,  he  walked  down 
the  long  veranda  and  came  to  her  big,  cool  room,  deli- 
cately shaded  with  rose  lights  and  full  of  the  scent  of 
violets  and  faint  Parisian  essences.  He  could  not  see 
her  of  course,  or  the  rose  lights,  but  he  sensed  her 
sitting  there  in  her  long  chair,  looking  languorous 
and  subtle,  with  colours  and  flowers  and  books  about 
her.  The  nurse  guided  him  to  a  seat  near  her  and 
left  them  together. 

"Well,  here  we  are,  Lundi — turned  into  a  pair  of 
wretched,  broken-down  crocks!" 

The  words  were  light,  but  the  indescribable  bitter- 
ness of  her  voice  struck  at  him  painfully. 

"Only  for  a  little  while,"  he  said  gently.  "We'll 
both  be  back  in  the  game  soon,  fitter  than  ever." 

"Never!"  There  was  the  sound  of  a  shudder  in 
the  exclamation.  "How  can  one  ever  be  the  same 
after  thai " 


164  The  Leopard 

"You've  been  a  brick!  You  mustn't  give  way 
now,  after  coming  through  so  bravely." 

"How  I  hate  Africa!"  she  exclaimed  fiercely. 

Druro  could  not  help  smiling. 

"Poor  old  Africa!  We  all  abuse  her  like  a  pick- 
pocket and  cling  to  her  like  a  mother." 

"  I  don't  cling.     All  I  ask  is  never  to  see  her  again." 

"  I  don't  wonder.  She  has  not  treated  you  too 
well." 

The  smile  faded  from  his  lips,  leaving  them  sombre. 
It  was  like  looking  into  a  dark  window  to  see  Lundi 
Druro's  face  without  the  gaiety  of  his  eyes.  At  the 
same  time,  their  absence  threw  up  a  quality  of  strength 
about  his  mouth  and  jaw  that  might  have  gone  un- 
observed. He  was  conscious  of  her  attention  acutely 
fixed  upon  him,  but  he  could  not  know  with  what 
avid  curiosity  she  was  searching  his  features,  or  guess, 
fortunately  for  him,  at  the  cold,  clear  thought  that 
was  passing  through  her  mind. 

"  How  awful  to  have  to  drag  a  blind  husband  about 
the  world!  Still — the  money  will  mitigate.  I  can 

always  pay  people  to "  Then  a  thrill  of  pleasure 

shot  through  that  bleak  and  desert  thing  which  was 
her  heart.  "  He  will  never  see  me  as  I  am  now." 

Yes;  this  reflection  actually  gave  her  pleasure  and 
content  in  Druro's  tragedy.  He,  of  all  the  world, 
would  still  think  of  her  as  she  had  been  before  the 
leopard  puckered  her  throat  and  scarred  her  cheek 
with  terrible  scars.  At  the  thought,  her  vanity, 
which  was  her  soul,  suddenly  flowered  forth  again. 
Her  voice  softened;  some  of  the  old  glamour  came 
back  into  it. 

"Will  you  take  me  away  from  this  cruel  country, 
Lundi — as  soon  as  we  are  both  better?" 


The  Leopard  165 

To  leave  Africa,  and  that  which  Africa  held!  All 
Lundi  Drum's  blood  called  out,  "No,"  but  his  firm 
lips  answered  gently: 

"Yes;  if  you  wish  it,"  then  closed  again  as  if  set  in 
stone. 

"And  never  come  back  to  it  again?" 

"That  is  a  harder  thing  to  promise,  Marice,"  he 
said.  "One  never  knows  what  life  and  fate  may 
demand  of  one.  My  work  might  call  me  back 
here." 

"Yes,  yes;  that  is  true,"  she  said  peevishly.  "The 
main  thing  is  that  you  will  never  expect  me  to  come 
back.  But,  of  course,  if  you  are  blind,  it  will  not  be 
much  use  your  coming  either." 

The  blow  was  unexpected,  but  he  did  not  flinch. 
She  was  the  first  person  who  had  taken  such  a  prob- 
ability for  granted;  but  he  had  long  faced  the  con- 
tingency himself. 

"  If  I  am  to  be  blind,  we  must  reconstruct  plans 
and  promises,  Marice.  They  are  made,  as  far  as  I 
am  concerned,  conditionally." 

"No;  no  conditions!"  she  cried  feverishly.  'I 
am  going  to  marry  you,  whether  your  eyes  recover 
not  not.  Promise  me  you  won't  draw  back,  if  the 
worst  comes?" 

She  could  not  bear  to  lose  him — this  one  man  in  all 
the  world  who  would  still  think  her  beautiful.  All  her 
soul  which  was  her  vanity  cried  out  passionately  to 
him. 

"  Of  course  I  will  promise  you,  dear,  if  you  think  it 
good  enough,"  he  said,  "if  you  still  want  me  and 
think  a  blind  man  can  make  you  happy." 

"Yes;  I  want  you  blind,"  she  answered  strangely. 
"You  can  make  me  very  happy."  Then  she  reached 


i66  The  Leopard 

for  the  bell-button  and  pressed  it.  Her  nerves  were 
giving  out,  and  she  needed  to  be  alone.  But  the 
future  was  arranged  for  now,  and  she  could  rest. 
She  made  a  subtle  sign  to  the  entering  nurse,  and 
Druro  never  guessed  that  he  was  being  evicted  by 
any  one  but  the  latter  in  her  professional  capacity. 
To  be  deceived  is  doubtless  part  of  the  terrible  fate  of 
the  blind. 

She  had  succeeded  in  deceiving  Druro  in  more 
than  this.  Confirmed  now  in  the  belief  that  he  was 
necessary  to  her  happiness  and  that  to  fulfil  his 
promises  to  her  was  the  only  way  of  honour,  he  knew 
that  he  must  thrust  the  thought  of  Gay  out  of  his 
mind  for  ever.  Even  in  the  grey  misery  of  that 
decision,  he  could  still  feel  a  glow  of  gratitude  toward 
the  woman  who  loved  him  enough  to  face  the  future 
with  a  blind  man.  Because  his  mind  was  a  jumble 
of  emotions  fermented  by  the  humility  born  of  sitting 
in  darkness  and  affliction,  for  many  days  he  spoke  a 
little  of  it  to  Tryon,  who  came,  as  was  now  his  custom, 
to  help  pass  away  the  evening.  So  Tryon  was  the 
first  person  in  Wankelo  to  hear  of  Marice  Hading's 
greatness  of  heart — and  the  last  person  in  the  world  to 
believe  in  it.  But  he  did  not  say  so  to  Druro.  He 
had  long  ago  sized  up  Marice  Hading's  subtle  mind 
and  shallow  soul,  and  it  was  not  very  difficult  for  him 
to  read  this  riddle  of  new-born  nobility.  Druro  and 
his  rich  mine  were  to  pay  the  price  of  her  lost  beauty. 
What  booted  it  if  he  were  blind?  So  much  the  better 
for  the  vanity  of  a  woman  who  worshipped  her  beauty 
as  Mrs.  Hading  had  done.  It  was  certain  that,  blind 
or  whole,  she  meant  to  hold  Druro  to  his  bond,  and 
that  she  would  eventually  make  hay  with  his  life, 
Tryon  had  not  the  faintest  doubt.  Destruction  for 


The  Leopard  167 

Druro — shipwreck  for  Gay!  A  woman's  cruel,  skilful 
little  hands  had  crumpled  up  their  happiness  like  so 
much  waste  paper,  and  Tryon,  with  the  best  will  in 
the  world,  saw  no  clear  way  to  save  it  from  being 
pitched  to  the  burning.  The  best  he  could  do,  for 
that  evening  at  least,  was  to  shake  Druro's  hand 
warmly  at  parting  and  tell  him  that  he  was  a  deuced 
lucky  fellow. 

Two  days  later,  Sir  Charles  Tryon  arrived,  a  short, 
square  man  with  most  unprofessional  high  spirits 
and  a  jolly  laugh  that  filled  everyone  with  hope. 
It  was  late  in  the  afternoon  when  he  got  to  Wankelo, 
and,  after  a  cursory  test  of  Druro's  eyes,  he  announced 
himself  unable  to  give  a  decisive  verdict  until  after 
a  more  complete  examination  the  following  day.  He 
then  departed  to  his  brother's  house  for  dinner  and  a 
good  night's  rest  after  his  long  journey. 

No  sooner  had  Dick  tucked  him  safely  away  than 
he  was  back  again  at  the  hospital,  for  he  had  a  very 
shrewd  notion  of  the  brand  of  misery  Druro,  con- 
demned to  a  night's  suspense,  would  be  suffering.  And 
he  guessed  right.  Emma  Guthrie,  just  arrived,  was  in 
the  act  of  "cheering  him  up"  with  an  account  of  the 
mine's  output  from  the  monthly  clean-up  that  day. 

"How  many  ounces?"  asked  Druro  indifferently. 
The  prosperity  of  the  mine  bothered  him  far  less 
than  the  fate  of  his  eyes,  for  he  knew  himself  to  be 
one  of  those  men  who  can  always  find  gold.  If  one 
mine  gave  out,  there  were  plenty  of  others. 

"Five  hundred,  as  usual,"  said  Guthrie  jubilantly. 
"Here  it  is — feel  it;  weigh  it." 

From  a  sagging  coat  pocket  he  abstracted  what 
might,  from  its  size  and  shape,  have  been  a  bar  of 
soap  but  for  the  yellow  shine  of  it,  and  placed  it  in 


1 68  The  Leopard 

Drum's  right  hand.    The  latter  lifted  it  with  a  weigh- 
ing gesture  for  a  moment  and  handed  it  back. 

"That's  all  right." 

"All  right!  I  should  say!"  declaimed  the  bright 
and  bragful  Emma.  "Two  thousand  of  the  best 
there,  all  gay  and  golden!  I  tell  you,  Lundi,  we've 
got  a  peach.  And  she  hasn't  done  her  best  by  a  long 
chalk.  She's  only  beginning.  You  buck  up  and 
get  your  eyes  well,  my  boy,  and  come  and  see  for 
yourself."  He  began  to  hold  forth  in  technical  terms 
that  were  Greek  to  Tryon  concerning  stopes,  cross- 
cuts, foot-walls,  stamps,  and  drills.  Every  moment 
his  voice  grew  gayer  and  more  ecstatic.  He  seemed 
drunk  with  success  and  unable  to  contain  his  bubbling, 
rapturous  optimism,  and  that  Druro  sat  brooding 
with  the  sinister  silence  of  a  volcano  that  might,  at 
any  instant,  burst  into  violent  eruption  did  not  appear 
to  disturb  him.  Fortunately,  some  other  men  came 
in  and  relieved  the  situation;  when  Guthrie  took  his 
leave,  a  few  moments  later,  Tryon  made  a  point  of 
accompanying  him  to  the  gate.  He  was  getting  as 
sick  as  Druro  of  Emma's  perpetual  gaiety  and  came 
out  with  the  distinct  intention  of  saying  so  as  rudely  as 
possible. 

"What  do  you  mean  by  bringing  your  devilish 
good  spirits  here?  Have  you  no  bowels?  Kindly 
chuck  it  for  once  and  for  all." 

Guthrie,  squatting  on  his  haunches,  feeling  his 
bicycle  tyres,  turned  up  to  him  a  face  grown  suddenly 
rutted  and  haggard  as  a  Japanese  gargoyle. 

"That  drum-and-fife  band  is  only  a  bluff,  Dick," 
he  said  quietly.  "The  Leopard  is  G.  I.,  and  if  that 
boy  loses  his  eyes  as  well,  neither  of  us  will  ever 
climb  out  of  the  soup  again." 


The  Leopard  169 

Tryon  came  out  of  the  gate  and  stared  at  him 
interestedly. 

"  What  do  you  mean?     How  can  the  Leopard — 

"  I  mean  that  the  reef  is  gone — for  good,  this 
time." 

"The  reef  gone?"  reiterated  Tryon  stupidly. 
"Why — good  Lord,  I  thought  you'd  found  it  richer 
and  stronger  than  ever!" 

"So  we  did.  But,  my  boy,  mining  is  the  biggest 
gamble  in  the  world.  It  pinched  out,  sudden  as  a 
stroke  of  apoplexy,  a  few  days  after  Lundi's  accident. 
We've  got  a  month's  crushing  in  hand  now,  and  when 
that's  gone,  we'll  have  to  shut  down.  We're  bust!" 

"  But  what  about  that  five-hundred-ounce  clean-up 
you  handed  him?" 

"All  bluff!  I  drew  two  thousand  quid  for  native 
wages  and  threw  it  into  the  melting-pot.  That 
lovely  button  goes  back  to  the  bank  tomorrow. 
They've  got  to  be  bluffed,  too,  until  Lundi's  able 
to  stand  the  truth." 

"I  don't  know  if  he'll  thank  you  for  it,  Emma," 
said  Tryon,  at  last. 

"I  don't  say  he  will;  I  don't  say  Lundi  can't  take 
his  physic  when  he's  got  to,  as  well  as  any  man.  But 
I  can  reckon  he's  got  an  overdose  already.  I'll 
wait." 

Tryon  stared  a  while  into  the  shrewd,  wizened  face, 
then  said  thoughtfully: 

"  I  think  you're  quite  right.  There  are  moments 
when  enough  is  too  much,  and  I  haven't  a  doubt 
but  that  a  little  extra  bad  luck  would  just  finish  what 
chance  he  has  of  seeing  again.  Keep  it  up  your  sleeve 
anyway,  until  we  hear  my  brother's  verdict." 

"Oh,  I'll  keep  it,"  said  Emma  grimly.     "Once  his 


170  The  Leopard 

bandages  are  off,  we'll  let  the  hornets  buzz,  but  not 
before." 

"Meantime,"  remarked  Tryon,  "if  you  like  to 
make  me  a  present  of  the  information,  I  will  promise 
to  use  it  carefully  and  for  nothing  but  Druro's  benefit." 
Guthrie  gave  him  a  long,  expressionless  glance. 
"There  are  worse  things  than  having  your  eyes 
clawed  out  by  a  leopard,"  continued  Dick  enigmati- 
cally. 

"What  worse?" 

"  You  might,  for  instance,  have  your  heart  plucked 
out  by  a  vulture  while  you're  lying  helpless." 

"Poison  the  carcass!"  Emma  elegantly  advised. 
"That'll  finish  the  vulture  before  it  has  time  to  gorge 
full."  And,  as  he  straddled  his  battered  bicycle,  he 
added  a  significant  remark,  which  showed  that  he 
very  well  knew  what  he  was  talking  about.  "  Lundi'll 
always  be  blind  about  women,  anyway." 

Tryon  did  not  return  to  Druro's  room,  but  went 
thoughtfully  toward  that  wing  of  the  hospital  in 
which  he  knew  the  quarters  of  the  young  and  pretty 
matron  to  be  situated.  Having  found  her,  he  put 
before  her  so  urgent  and  convincing  an  appeal  for  an 
interview  with  Mrs.  Hading  that  she  went  herself  to 
ask  that  lady  to  receive  him.  A  clinching  factor 
was  an  adroit  remark  about  his  brother's  interest 
in  Druro's  chances.  He  guessed  that  such  a  remark 
repeated  would  bring  him  into  Marice  Hading's 
presence  quicker  than  anything  else,  and  he  was 
right.  Within  five  minutes,  he  was  in  the  softly 
shaded,  violet-scented  room  where  Druro  had  groped 
his  way  some  nights  before — the  difference  being 
that  he  could  see  that  which  Druro  had  mercifully 
been  spared. 


The  Leopard  171 

The  beauty  of  the  woman  sitting  in  the  long  chair 
had  been  torn  from  her  like  a  veil  behind  which  she 
had  too  long  hidden  her  real  self.  Now  that  she  was 
stripped,  a  naked  thing  in  the  wind,  all  eyes  could 
see  her  deformities  and  read  her  cold  and  arid  soul. 
The  furies  of  rage  and  rancour  were  grabbling  at  her 
heart,  even  as  the  leopard  had  scrabbled  on  her  face. 
It  was  not  the  mere  disfigurement  of  the  angry, 
purplish  scars  that  twisted  her  mouth  and  puckered 
her  cheeks.  A  shining  spirit,  gentle  and  brave  in 
affliction  might  have  transformed  even  these,  robbing 
them  of  their  hideousness.  But  here  was  one  who 
had  "thrown  down  every  temple  she  had  built," 
and  whose  dark  eyes  were  empty  now  of  anything 
except  a  malign  and  bitter  ruin.  It  was  as  though 
nothing  could  longer  cover  and  conceal  her  cynical 
dislike  of  all  things  but  herself.  The  face  set  on  the 
long,  ravaged  throat,  once  so  subtly  alluring,  had 
turned  hawklike  and  cruel.  It  seemed  shrivelled, 
too,  and,  between  the  narrow  linen  bandages  she  still 
wore,  it  had  the  cunning  malice  of  some  bird  of  prey 
peering  from  a  barred  cage. 

Tryon  looked  once,  then  kept  his  eyes  to  his  boots. 
He  would  have  given  much  to  have  fled,  and,  in  truth, 
he  had  no  stomach  for  his  job.  It  seemed  to  him 
uncommonly  like  hitting  at  some  wounded  creature 
already  smitten  to  death.  But  it  was  not  for  himself 
he  was  fighting.  It  was  for  Gay's  sweet,  upright  soul, 
and  the  happiness  of  a  man  too  good  to  be  thrown  to 
the  vultures  of  a  woman's  greed  and  cruelty.  That 
thought  hardened  his  heart  for  the  task  he  had  in  hand. 

Marice  came  to  the  point  at  once.  It  seemed 
that,  with  her  beauty,  she  had  lost  or  discarded  the 
habit  of  subtle  attack. 


172  The  Leopard 

"What  does  Sir  Charles  think  of  his  chances?" 

It  was  Tryon  who  had  to  have  recourse  to  subtlety. 
Juggling  with  his  brother's  professional  name  was  a 
risky  business,  and  he  did  not  mean  to  get  on  to 
dangerous  ground. 

"He  can't  tell  yet — he  was  afraid  to  be  certain, 
tonight — is  going  to  have  another  go  at  them  to- 
morrow. Bui — 

"But?"  She  leaned  forward  eagerly.  "There  is 
not  much  hope?" 

There  was  no  mistaking  her  face  and  voice.  It 
was  as  he  had  guessed;  she  did  not  want  Druro  to 
recover.  Tryon  had  no  further  qualms. 

"I  am  not  going  to  give  up  hope,  anyway,"  he 
said,  with  that  air  of  dogged  intent  which  is  often 
founded  on  hopelessness.  She  gave  a  little  sigh  and 
sat  back  among  her  cushions,  like  a  woman  who  has 
taken  a  refreshing  drink. 

"Dear  Druro,  it  is  very  sad  for  him!"  said  she 
complacently,  and  presently  added,  "but  I  shall 
always  see  that  he  is  taken  care  of." 

Something  in  Tryon  shuddered,  but  outwardly  he 
gave  no  sign,  only  looked  at  her  commiseratingly. 

"It  is  that  we  are  thinking  of — Guthrie  and  I. 
Are  you  strong  enough  physically  and  well-enough 
off  financially  to  undertake  such  a  burden?"  She 
regarded  him  piercingly,  a  startled  look  in  her  eyes. 
"Doubtless  you  are  a  rich  women — and,  of  course, 
no  one  could  doubt  your  generosity.  Still,  a  blind 
man  without  means  of  his  own — 

"What  ?"  She  fired  the  word  at  him  like  a  pistol-shot. 

"He  does  not  know,"  said  Tryon  softly.  "We  are 
keeping  it  dark  for  some  days  yet.  The  two  shocks 
together  might "  He  paused. 


The  Leopard  173 

"What — what?"  she  panted  at  him,  like  a  runner 
at  the  end  of  his  last  lap. 

"The  mine  is  no  good.  They  are  dropping  back 
into  it  every  penny  they  ever  made,  and  the  reef  has 
pinched  out.  Guthrie  told  me  this  tonight  on  his 
oath."  The  woman  gave  a  long,  sighing  breath  and 
lay  back  painfully  in  her  chair.  But  Tryon  had  a 
cruel  streak  in  him.  He  would  not  let  her  rest. 
"  He  is  a  ruined  man,  and  may  be  a  blind  man,  but, 
thank  God,  he  has  you  to  lean  on!" 

"You  are  mad!"  said  she,  and  burst  into  a  harsh 
laugh.  Tryon's  face  was  full  of  grave  concern  as  he 
rose. 

"Shall  1  send  your  nurse?" 

She  pulled  herself  together  sharply. 

"Yes,  yes;  send  her — but,  before  you  go,  promise 
me,  Mr.  Tryon,  never  to  let  Druro  know  you  told  me." 

("  Is  it  possible  that  she  has  so  much  grace  in  her?" 
he  pondered.) 

"Never!"  he  promised  solemnly.  "He  shall  find 
out  the  greatness  of  your  love  for  himself." 

Like  fate,  Tryon  knew  where  to  rub  in  the  salt. 
As  he  went  down  the  veranda,  he  heard  the  same 
harsh,  cruel  laugh  ringing  out,  somewhat  like  the 
laugh  of  a  hyena  that  has  missed  its  prey. 

After  Sir  Charles  had  gone,  Druro  sat  for  a  while 
silent,  elbows  on  the  table,  thinking.  He  had  insisted 
upon  getting  up  as  usual,  though  they  had  tried  to 
keep  him  in  bed.  He  was  not  going  to  take  it  lying 
down,  he  said.  So  now  he  sat  there,  alone,  except 
for  Toby,  who  sat  on  his  knee  and,  from  time  to  time, 
put  out  a  little  red  tongue  and  gently  licked  his 
master's  ear. 


174  The  Leopard 

The  nurses  who  came  softly  in  to  congratulate  him 
slipped  away  softlier  still,  without  speaking.  They 
could  understand  what  it  meant  to  him  to  know  that 
he  would  see  the  sunshine  again,  the  rose  and  prim- 
rose dawns,  the  great  purple  shadows  of  night  flung 
across  the  veld.  What  they  did  not  know  was  that, 
in  spirit,  he  was  looking  his  last  on  the  land  he  loved 
and  seeing  down  a  vista  of  long  years  greyer  than 
the  veld  on  the  greyest  day  of  winter.  His  lips  were 
firmly  closed,  but  they  wore  a  bluish  tinge  as  he  sat 
there,  for  he  was  tasting  life  colder  than  ice  and  drier 
than  the  dust  of  the  desert  between  his  teeth;  and 
the  serpent  of  remorse  and  regret  was  at  his  heart. 

But  not  for  long.  Presently  he  rose  and  squared 
his  shoulders,  like  a  man  settling  his  burden  for  a 
long  march,  and  said  quickly  to  himself  some  words 
he  had  once  read,  he  knew  not  where. 

"'A  man  shall  endure  such  things  as  the  stern 
women  drew  off  the  spindles  for  him  at  his  birth/  ' 

His  nurse,  who  had  been  waiting  in  the  veranda, 
hearing  his  voice,  now  came  in  and  greeted  him  gaily. 

"Hooray,  Mr.  Druro!  Oh,  you  don't  know  how 
glad  we  all  are!  And  the  whole  town  has  been  here 
to  wish  you  luck  and  joy  on  the  news.  But  Sir 
Charles  made  us  drive  them  all  away.  He  says  you 
may  see  no  more  than  two  people  before  you  have 
lunched  and  rested,  and  he  has  selected  the  two 
himself." 

"What  cheek!"  said  Druro.  "And  what  a  nice 
soft  hand  you've  got,  nurse!" 

"Be  off  with  you  now!"  laughed  the  trim  Irish 
nurse.  "And  how  can  I  read  you  the  letter  I  have  for 
you  with  one  hand?" 

"Try  it  wid  wan  eye  instid,"  said  he,  putting  on  a 


The  Leopard  175 

brogue  to  match  her  own.     She  laughed  and  escaped, 
and,  later,  read  the  letter,  at  his  wish. 

LUNDI  DEAR: 

I  grieve  to  hurt  you,  but  it  is  no  use  pretending. 
I  can  never  live  in  this  atrocious  Africa,  and  I  feel  it 
would  be  cruel  to  tear  you  away  from  a  country  you 
love  so  much.  Besides,  after  deep  consideration, 
I  find  that  my  darling  husband's  memory  is  dearer 
to  me  than  any  living  man  can  be.  Forgive  me — and 
farewell. 

MARICE. 

"She  left  by  the  morning's  train,"  said  the  nurse. 
"  You  know  she  has  been  well  enough  to  go  for  more 
than  a  week." 

As  Lundi  did  not  answer,  she  went  away  and  left 
him  once  more  sitting  very  still.  But  with  what  a 
different  stillness!  The  whole  world  smelled  sweet  in 
his  nostrils  and  spoke  of  freedom.  His  blood  chanted 
a  paean  of  praise  and  hope  to  the  sun  and  moon  and 
stars.  An  old  cry  of  the  open  surged  in  him. 

"Life  is  sweet,  brother!  There  is  day  and  night, 
brother,  both  sweet  things,  sun,  moon,  and  stars,  all 
sweet  things;  there's  likewise  a  wind  on  the  heath!" 

The  voice  of  Tryon  broke  in  on  his  communings. 

"How  do  you  feel,  old  man?" 

"That  you,  Dick?"  Druro  stooped  down  and  felt 
for  Toby  once  more.  "  I  feel  inclined  to  run  out  into 
the  street  and  throw  my  hat  into  the  air,  and  yell 
out  that  I'll  fight  any  one,  play  poker  against  any  one, 
and  match  my  girl  and  my  dog  against  all  comers." 

"Indeed!  Then  I'll  leave  you,  for  you're  certainly 
suffering  from  a  dangerous  swagger  in  the  blood." 


176  The  Leopard 

Tryon's  smile  had  more  than  a  tinge  of  sadness  in 
it  as  he  turned  to  go.  This  action  of  his  was  one  of 
those  that  smell  sweet  and  blossom  in  the  dust,  but, 
as  yet,  he  was  too  near  it  to  savour  much  more  than 
its  bitterness.  The  path  is  narrow  and  the  gate  is 
straight  for  those  who  serve  faithfully  at  Love's 
high  altar.  As  he  went  from  the  room,  he  looked 
with  tender  eyes  at  the  flower-like  girl  who  had  come 
in  with  him  and  stood  now  with  smiling  lips  and 
eyes  full  of  tears  looking  at  the  man  and  the  dog. 

"You  ought  to  give  him  a  lecture,  Gay.  It  isn't 
good  for  a  man  to  be  so  puffed  up  with  pride." 

"Gay!"  said  Druro,  standing  up  and  letting  Toby 
down  with  a  rush. 

"  Yes,  Lundi.  Dick  fetched  me.  I  had  to  come  and 
tell  you  how  glad- 
She  slid  a  hand  into  his,  and  he  drew  her  into  his 
arms  and  began  to  kiss  her  with  those  slow,  still- 
lipped  kisses  that  have  all  the  meaning  of  life  and 
love  behind  them. 

Toby,  having  trotted  out  into  the  garden,  now 
returned  with  a  large  stone  which  he  had  culled  as 
one  might  gather  a  bouquet  of  flowers  to  present 
upon  a  triumphant  occasion. 


Rosanne  Ozanne 

PART  I 

ALTHOUGH  the  Ozannes  kept  an  hotel  in  Kimberley, 
they  were  not  of  the  class  usually  associated  with 
hotel-running  in  rough  mining-towns.  It  was  merely 
that,  on  their  arrival  in  the  diamond  fields,  they  had 
accepted  such  work  as  came  to  their  hands,  in  a  place 
where  people  like  Cecil  Rhodes  and  Alfred  Beit  were 
washing  blue  ground  for  diamonds  in  their  own 
claims,  and  other  men,  afterward  to  become  world- 
famous  millionaires,  were  standing  behind  counters 
bartering  with  natives  or  serving  drinks  to  miners. 

John  Ozanne,  the  honest  but  not  brilliant  son  of  an 
English  clergyman,  did  not  disdain  to  serve  behind 
his  own  bar,  either,  when  his  barman  was  sick,  and 
his  wife,  in  servantless  days,  turned  to  in  the  hotel 
kitchen  and  cooked  the  meals,  though  such  work  was 
far  from  her  taste  and  had  not  been  included  in  her 
upbringing  as  a  country  doctor's  daughter.  In  fact, 
the  pair  of  them  were  of  the  stuff  from  which  good 
colonials  are  made,  and  they  deserved  the  luck  that 
gradually  came  to  them. 

In  time,  the  little  hotel  grew  into  a  large  and 
flourishing  concern.  John  Ozanne  was  seen  no  more 
in  his  bar,  and  his  wife  retired  into  the  privacy  of  her 


178  Rosanne  Ozanne 

own  wing  of  the  building,  though  her  capable  hand 
was  still  felt  in  the  hotel  management.  It  was  at 
this  period  that  the  little  twin  daughters  were  born 
to  them,  adding  a  fresh  note  of  sweetness  to  the 
harmony  that  existed  between  the  devoted  and 
prosperous  couple. 

They  were  bonny,  healthy  children,  and  very  pretty, 
though  not  at  all  alike — little  Rosanne  being  very 
dusky,  while  Rosalie  was  fair  as  a  lily.  All  went  well 
with  them  until  about  a  year  after  their  birth,  when 
Rosanne  fell  ill  of  a  wasting  sickness  as  inexplicable 
as  it  was  deadly.  Without  rhyme  or  reason  that 
doctors  or  mother  could  lay  finger  on,  the  little  mite 
just  grew  thinner  and  more  peevish  day  by  day,  and 
visibly  faded  under  their  eyes.  Every  imaginable 
thing  was  tried  without  result,  and,  at  last,  the  doctors 
"grown  glum  and  the  mother  despairing  were  obliged 
to  admit  themselves  beaten  by  the  mysterious  sickness. 

Late  one  afternoon,  Mrs.  Ozanne,  sitting  in  her 
bedroom,  realized  that  the  end  was  near.  The  child 
lay  on  her  lap,  a  mere  bundle  of  skin  and  bone,  green 
in  colour  and  scarcely  breathing.  The  doctor  had 
just  left  with  a  sad  shake  of  his  head  and  the  conclusive 
words: 

"Only  a  matter  of  an  hour  or  so,  Mrs.  Ozanne. 
Try  and  bear  up.  You  have  the  other  little  one  left." 

But  what  mother's  heart  could  ever  comfort  its 
pain  for  the  loss  of  one  loved  child  by  thinking  of 
those  that  are  left?  Heavy  tears  fell  down  Mrs. 
Ozanne' s  cheek  on  to  the  small,  wasted  form.  Her 
trouble  seemed  the  more  poignant  in  that  she  had  to 
bear  it  alone,  for  her  husband  was  away  on  a  trip  to 
the  old  country.  She  herself  was  sick,  worn  to  a 
shadow  from  long  nursing  and  watching.  But  even 


Rosanne  Ozanne  179 

now  there  was  no  effort,  physical  or  mental,  that  she 
would  not  have  made  to  save  the  little  life  that 
had  just  been  condemned.  Her  painful  brooding  was 
broken  by  the  sound  of  a  soft  and  languorous  voice. 

"Baby  very  sick,  missis?" 

The  mother  looked  up  and  saw,  in  the  doorway, 
the  new  cook  who  had  been  with  them  about  a  week, 
and  of  whom  she  knew  little  save  that  the  woman 
was  a  Malay  and  named  Rachel  Bangat.  There  was 
nothing  strange  in  her  coming  to  the  mistress's  room 
to  offer  sympathy.  In  a  South  African  household 
the  servants  take  a  vivid  interest  in  all  that  goes  on. 

"Yes,"  said  the  mother,  dully.  The  woman  crept 
nearer  and  looked  down  on  the  little  face  with  its 
deathly  green  shadows. 

"  Baby  going  to  die,  missis,"  she  said. 

Mrs.  Ozanne  bowed  her  head.  There  was  silence 
then.  The  mother,  blind  with  tears,  thought  the 
woman  had  gone  as  quietly  as  she  came,  but  pre- 
sently the  voice  spoke  again,  almost  caressingly. 

"Missis  sell  baby  to  me  for  a  farthing;  baby  not 
die." 

The  mother  gave  a  jump,  then  dashed  the  tears 
from  her  eyes  and  stared  at  the  speaker.  In  the 
dusky  shadows  of  the  doorway  the  woman,  in  her 
white  turban  and  black-and-gold  shawl,  seemed  sud- 
denly to  have  assumed  a  fateful  air.  Yet  she  was 
an  ordinary  enough  looking  Malay,  of  stout,  even 
course,  build,  with  a  broad,  high  cheek-boned  face 
that  wore  the  grave  expression  of  her  race.  It  was 
only  her  dark  eyes,  full  of  a  sinister  melancholy,  that 
differed  from  any  eyes  Mrs.  Ozanne  had  ever  seen, 
making  her  shiver  and  clutch  the  baby  to  her  breast. 

"Go  away  out  of  here!"  she  said  violently,  and  the 


i8o  Rosanne  Ozanne 

woman  went,  without  a  word.  But  within  half  an 
hour  the  languorous  voice  was  whispering  once  more 
from  the  shadow  of  the  doorway. 

"Missis  sell  baby  to  me  for  a  farthing;  baby  get 
well." 

The  mother,  crouching  over  the  baby,  straining  her 
ears  for  its  faltering  heart-beats,  had  no  words.  In 
a  sort  of  numb  terror  she  waved  the  woman  off.  It 
was  no  more  than  fifteen  minutes  later  that  the 
Malay  came  again;  yet  it  seemed  to  Mrs.  Ozanne 
that  she  waited  hours  with  cracking  ear-drums  to 
hear  once  more  the  terms  of  the  strange  bargain. 
This  time,  the  words  differed  slightly. 

"Missis  sell  baby  to  me  for  two  years;  baby  belong 
all  to  me;  missis  no  touch,  no  speak."  In  the  dark 
palm  she  proffered  lay  a  farthing.  "Take  it  quick, 
missis;  baby  dying." 

Sophia  Ozanne  cast  one  anguished  glance  at  the 
face  of  her  child,  then  gave  it  up,  clutched  the  farthing 
and  fell  fainting  to  the  floor. 

An  hour  later,  other  servants  came  to  relate  that 
the  baby  was  still  alive  and  its  breathing  more  regular. 
In  another  hour,  they  reported  it  sleeping  peacefully. 
The  heart-wrung  mother,  still  weak  and  quivering 
from  her  collapse,  crept  through  the  hotel  and  came 
faltering  to  the  kitchen  threshold,  but  dared  not 
enter.  Near  the  fire,  on  a  rough  bed  formed  of  two 
chairs  and  a  folded  blanket,  the  child  lay  sleeping. 
Even  from  the  door  she  could  see  that  its  colour  was 
better  and  the  green  shadows  gone.  The  atmosphere 
of  the  kitchen  was  gently  warm.  Rachel  Bangat, 
with  her  back  to  the  door,  was  busy  at  the  table 
cutting  up  vegetables.  Without  turning  round,  she 
softly  addressed  the  mother. 


Rosanne  Ozanne  181 

"You  keep  away  from  here.  If  you  not  remember 
baby  my  baby  for  two  years,  something  happen!" 

That  was  all.  But  under  the  languor  of  the  voice 
lay  a  dagger-like  menace  that  struck  to  the  mother's 
heart. 

"Oh,  I'll  keep  the  bargain,"  she  whispered  fervently. 
"Only — be  kind  to  my  child,  won't  you?" 

"Malays  always  kind  to  children,"  said  Rachel 
Bangat  impassively,  and  continued  peeling  vegetables. 

It  was  true.  All  Malay  women  have  a  passion  for 
children,  and  consider  themselves  afflicted  if  they  have 
never  borne  a  child.  Illegitimate  and  unwanted 
babies  will  always  find  a  home  open  to  them  in  the 
Malay  quarter  of  any  South  African  town.  The 
mother,  comforted  in  some  sort  by  the  knowledge, 
stole  away — and  kept  away. 

Within  two  weeks  the  child  was  sitting  up  playing 
with  its  toes.  Within  a  month  it  was  toddling  about 
the  kitchen,  though  the  little  sister  did  not  walk 
until  some  weeks  later.  The  story  got  about  Kimber- 
ley,  much  as  Mrs.  Ozanne  tried  to  keep  it  secret. 
For  one  thing,  the  child's  extraordinary  recovery 
could  not  be  hidden  The  doctor's  amazement  was 
not  less  than  that  of  the  friends  who  had  watched 
the  progress  of  the  child's  sickness  and  awaited  its 
fatal  termination.  These,  having  come  to  condole, 
stayed  to  gape  at  the  news  that  Rosanne  was  better 
and  down  in  the  kitchen  with  the  cook.  Later,  Mrs. 
Ozanne's  nurse  appeared  regularly  in  the  Public 
Gardens  with  only  one  baby,  where  once  she  had 
perambulated  two.  Little  Rosanne  was  never  seen, 
and,  indeed,  never  left  the  back  premises  of  the 
hotel  except  on  Sunday  afternoons,  when  Rachel 
Bangat  arrayed  her  in  gaudy  colours  and  took  her 


182  Rosanne  Ozanne 

away  to  the  Malay  Location.  The  child's  health, 
instead  of  suffering,  seemed  to  thrive  under  this 
treatment,  and  she  was  twice  the  size  of  her  twin 
sister.  Mrs.  Ozanne  had  means  of  knowing,  too, 
that,  though  Rosanne  gambolled  round  in  the  dust 
like  a  little  animal  all  day,  she  was  well  washed  at 
night  and  put  to  sleep  in  a  clean  bed.  That  was 
some  comfort  to  the  poor  mother  in  her  wretchedness. 
She  knew  that  Kimberley  tongues  were  wagging  busily 
and  that,  thanks  to  the  servants,  the  story  had  leaked 
out  and  was  public  property.  There  were  not  wanting 
mothers  to  condemn  her  for  what  they  variously 
termed  her  foolishness,  ignorant  supersitition,  and 
heartlessness.  But  there  were  others  who  sym- 
pathized, saying  that  she  had  done  well  in  a  bad 
situation  to  trust  to  the  healing  gift  some  Malays 
are  known  to  possess  together  with  many  other 
strange  powers  for  good  and  evil.  The  doctor  him- 
self, after  seeing  little  Rosanne  with  a  pink  flush  in 
her  cheeks,  had  said  to  her  mother: 

"It's  a  mystery  to  me — in  fact,  something  very 
like  a  miracle.  But,  as  it  turns  out,  you  did  quite 
right  to  let  the  woman  have  the  child.  I  should 
certainly  advise  you  to  leave  it  with  her  for  a  time." 

Even  if  he  had  not  so  advised  and  had  there  been 
no  sympathizers,  in  the  face  of  all  opposition  Mrs. 
Ozanne  would  have  stuck  to  her  bargain.  She  knew 
not  what  dread  fear  for  her  child's  safety  lay  shudder- 
ing in  the  depths  of  her  heart,  but  this  she  knew: 
that  nothing  could  make  her  defy  that  fear  by  break- 
ing bond  with  Rachel  Bangat. 

Even  her  husband's  anger,  when  he  returned  from 
England,  could  not  make  her  contemplate  such  a 
step.  She  had  written  and  told  him  all  about  the 


Rosanne  Ozanne  183 

matter  from  beginning  to  end,  describing  the  gamut 
of  emotions  through  which  she  had  passed — anxiety, 
suffering,  terror,  and  dreadful  relief;  and  he  had  sym- 
pathized and  seemed  to  understand,  even  applauding 
her  action  since  the  sequel  appeared  so  successful. 

But,  apparently,  he  had  never  fully  realized  the 
main  fact  of  the  bargain  until  he  returned  to  find 
that,  while  one  little  daughter  was  dainty  and  sweet 
under  a  nursemaid's  care,  the  other,  dressed  in  the 
gaudy  bandanas  and  bangles  of  a  Malay  child,  gam- 
bolled in  the  back  yard  or  crawled  in  the  kitchen 
among  potato  peelings  and  pumpkin  pips.  First 
aghast,  then  furious,  he  brooded  over  the  thing,  held 
back  by  his  terrified  wife  from  making  a  move. 
Then,  at  the  end  of  three  days,  he  broke  loose. 

"It's  an  outrage!"  he  averred,  and  stamped  to  the 
back  regions  with  his  wife  hanging  to  his  arm  trying 
to  stay  him.  In  the  kitchen  no  sign  of  Rachel  Bangat, 
but  the  child  was  sitting  in  a  small,  rough-deal  sugar- 
box,  which  served  for  waste  and  scraps,  using  it  as 
a  go-cart.  Amidst  the  debris  of  vegetable  and  fruit 
peelings,  she  sat  gurgling  and  banging  with  a  chunk 
of  pumpkin,  while  the  other  chubby  hand  held  a 
half-eaten  apple.  John  Ozanne  caught  her  up. 

"Leave  her,  John;  for  God's  sake,  leave  her!" 
pleaded  his  wife,  white-faced.  At  her  words  a  sound 
came  from  the  scullery,  and  the  cook  bounded  into 
the  doorway  and  stood  looking  with  a  dark  eye. 

"You  take  my  baby?"  she  asked.  Perhaps  it  was 
the  gentleness  of  her  tone  that  made  John  Ozanne 
stop  to  explain  that  it  was  not  fitting  for  an  English- 
man's child  to  be  dragged  up  in  a  kitchen,  and  that 
the  thing  could  not  go  on  any  longer. 

"I  quite  understand  that  you've  been  very  good, 


1 84  Rosanne  Ozanne 

my  woman,  and  I  shall  see  that  you  are  well  re " 

"You  take  her;  she  be  dead  in  twenty-four  hours," 
said  Rachel  Bangat  impassively.  Her  deep  languorous 
voice  seemed  to  stroke  its  hearers  like  a  velvety  hand, 
yet  had  in  it  some  deadly  quality.  To  John  Ozanne, 
unimaginative  man  though  he  was,  it  was  like  hearing 
the  click  of  a  revolver  in  the  hand  of  an  enemy  who 
is  a  dead  shot.  His  grasp  slackened  round  the  child, 
and  his  wife  took  her  from  him  and  set  her  back  in 
the  box.  They  went  out  alone.  Never  again  was  an 
attempt  made  to  break  the  two  years'  compact. 

At  the  end  of  the  allotted  time,  Mrs.  Ozanne  re- 
turned the  farthing  to  the  Malay,  who  received  it  in 
silence  but  with  a  strange  and  secret  smile.  Little 
Rosanne,  healthy  and  strong,  was  taken  into  the 
bosom  of  her  family,  and  John  Ozanne,  with  scant 
ceremony  or  sentiment,  paid  Rachel  Bangat  hand- 
somely for  her  services  and  dismissed  her.  Presum- 
able the  Malay  Location  swallowed  her  up,  for  she 
was  seen  no  more  at  the  hotel,  and  the  whole  strange 
episode  was,  to  all  outward  appearance,  finished. 

These  happenings  having  been  overpast  for  some 
fifteen  years,  many  changes  had  come,  in  the  mean- 
time, to  the  Ozanne  family.  The  head  of  it — that 
good  citizen,  husband,  and  father,  John  Ozanne — 
after  amassing  a  large  fortune,  had  severed  his  con- 
nection with  the  hotel  and  retired  to  enjoy  the  fruits 
of  his  industry.  Fate,  however,  had  not  permitted 
him  to  enjoy  them  long,  for  he  was  badly  injured  in  a 
carriage  accident  and  died  shortly  afterward,  leav- 
ing everything  to  his  wife  and  daughters.  The  lat- 
ter, having  enjoyed  the  advantages  of  education  in 
England  and  France,  were  now  returned  to  their 


Rosanne  Ozanne  185 

mother's  wing,  and  the  three  lived  together  in  a 
large,  cool  stone  residence  which,  pleasantly  situated 
in  Belgravia  (even  then  the  most  fashionable  part  of 
Kimberley),  was  known  as  Tiptree  House. 

Both  girls  were  extremely  pretty,  with  all  the 
bloom  and  grace  of  their  eighteen  years  upon  them, 
and  moved  in  the  best  society  the  place  afforded — a 
society  which,  if  not  more  cultured,  was  at  least  more 
alive  and  interesting  than  that  of  the  average  English 
country  town.  For  Kimberley  continued  to  be  the 
place  where  the  most  wonderful  diamonds  were  to 
be  picked  out  of  the  earth,  as  commonly  as  shells  off 
the  beach  of  a  South  Sea  Island,  and  the  adventurous 
and  ambitious  still  circulated  there  in  great  numbers. 
There  was  no  lack  of  gaiety  and  excitement,  and  the 
Ozanne  girls  joined  in  all  that  went  on,  and  were 
extremely  popular,  though  in  different  ways  and  for 
different  reasons.  Rosalie,  blond,  with  a  nature  as 
sunny  as  her  hair,  and  all  her  heart  to  be  read  in  her 
frank,  blue  eyes,  was  beloved  by  her  friends  for  her 
sympathy  and  sweetness;  while  the  feelings  that 
Rosanne  excited  were  more  in  the  nature  of  admira- 
tion and  astonishment  at  her  wit  and  fascination, 
and  the  verve  with  which  she  threw  herself  into  life. 
She  was  always  in  demand  for  brilliant  functions, 
which  she  made  the  more  brilliant  by  her  presence; 
but,  though  she  had  the  art  of  attracting  both  men 
and  women,  she  also  possessed  a  genius  for  searing 
and  wounding  those  who  came  too  close,  and  she  was 
not  able  to  keep  her  friends  as  Rosalie  did.  Her 
dark  beauty  was  touched  with  something  wild  and 
mysterious  that  repelled  even  while  it  charmed,  and 
her  ways  were  as  subtle  and  strange  as  her  looks. 
Indeed,  though  she  lived  under  the  same  roof  with 


i86  Rosanne  Ozanne 

her  mother  and  sister,  and  to  all  outward  appearance 
seemed  to  be  one  with  them  in  their  daily  life  and 
interests,  she  was  really  an  exile  in  her  own  family, 
and  all  three  were  aware  of  the  fact.  Rosalie  and 
Mrs.  Ozanne,  being  single-hearted,  simple  people,  were 
in  complete  accord  with  one  another;  but  there  was 
no  real  intimacy  between  them  and  Rosanne,  and 
though  they  had  (for  love  of  the  latter)  tried  for  years 
to  break  down  the  intangible  barrier  that  existed,  all 
efforts  were  vain  and  usually  resulted  in  pain  to  them- 
selves. It  was  as  though  Rosanne  dwelt  within  the 
fortified  camp  of  herself,  and  only  came  glancing 
forth  like  a  black  arrow  when  she  saw  an  opportunity 
to  deal  a  wound. 

Mrs.  Ozanne,  in  brooding  over  the  matter — as  she 
often  did— silently  and  sadly,  assigned  this  secret 
antagonism  in  Rosanne  to  the  strange  episode  of  the 
girl's  babyhood,  and  bitterly  blamed  the  Malay 
woman  for  stealing  her  child's  heart  and  changing 
her  nature.  Sometimes  she  actually  went  so  far  as 
to  wonder  if  it  would  not  have  been  better  to  have  let 
Rosanne  die  than  have  made  the  uncanny  bargain 
that  had  restored  her  to  health.  Once  she  had  even 
pondered  over  the  possibility  of  the  Malay  having 
tricked  her  by  exchanging  the  real  Rosanne  for 
another  child,  but  it  was  impossible  to  entertain 
such  an  idea  long;  Rosanne  bore  too  strong  a  re- 
semblance to  her  father's  side  of  the  family,  and  there 
were,  besides,  certain  small  birthmarks  which  no  art 
could  have  imitated. 

Still,  indubitably  a  something  existed  in  Rosanne 
that  was  foreign  to  her  family.  And  the  cruel  streak 
in  her  character  which  betrayed  itself  in  cutting 
comments,  as  bright  as  they  were  incisive,  and  tiny 


Rosanne  Ozanne  187 

acts  of  witty  malice  were  incomprehensible  to  her 
kindly-natured  mother  and  sister.  Furthermore,  her 
hatred,  when  it  was  aroused,  seemed  to  possess 
the  mysterious  quality  of  a  curse.  For  instance,  it 
appeared  to  be  enough  for  her  to  give  one  dark  glance 
at  someone  she  intensely  disliked  or  who  had  crossed 
her  wishes,  for  that  person  to  fall  sick,  or  suffer  ac- 
cident or  loss  or  some  unexpected  ill.  Mrs.  Ozanne 
had  noticed  it  times  out  of  number;  in  fact,  she 
secretly  kept  a  sort  of  black  list  of  all  the  things  that 
had  happened  to  people  who  had  been  so  unfortunate 
as  to  offend  Rosanne.  At  first,  it  had  seemed  to  the 
mother  impossible  that  there  could  be  anything  in 
the  thing,  but  the  evidence  had  gradually  mounted 
up  until  now  it  was  almost  overwhelming.  Besides, 
Mrs.  Ozanne  was  not  alone  in  remarking  it.  Rosalie, 
too,  knew,  and  conveyed  her  knowledge  in  round- 
about ways  to  her  mother,  for  they  would  never 
speak  openly  of  this  strangeness  in  one  they  dearly 
loved.  But  it  was  through  Rosalie  that  the  mother 
heard  that  the  same  thing  had  gone  on  at  school. 
There,  the  other  girls  had  superstitiously  but  secretly 
named  Rosanne  "The  Hoodoo  Girl,"  because  to 
have  much  to  do  with  her  always  brought  you  bad 
luck,  especially  if  you  fell  out  with  her.  In  fact, 
whenever  you  crossed  her  in  any  way,  "something 
happened,"  the  girls  said. 

"Something  happen!"  Those  had  been  the  Malay 
cook's  words  that  had  haunted  and  intimidated 
Mrs.  Ozanne.  And  that  was  what  it  all  amounted 
to.  Rosanne  had,  in  some  way,  acquired  the  power 
of  her  foster-mother  for  making  things  of  an  un- 
pleasant nature  happen  to  people  she  did  not  like. 
Kind-hearted  Mrs.  Ozanne,  with  mind  always  divided 


188  Rosanne  Ozanne 

between  stern  conviction  and  a  wish  to  deride  it, 
suffered  a  mental  trepidation  that  grew  daily  more 
unbearable,  for  what  had  been  serious  enough  when 
Rosanne  was  younger  began  to  be  something  perilously 
sinister  now  that  she  was  turning  into  a  woman  and 
her  deeper  passions  and  emotions  began  to  be  aroused. 
In  fact,  the  thing  had  come  home  to  Mrs.  Ozanne 
with  renewed  significance  lately,  and  she  was  still 
trembling  with  apprehension  over  several  strange 
happenings. 

This  was  one  of  them:  Pretty  Mrs.  Valpy,  an 
intimate  of  the  family,  and  by  way  of  being  one 
of  the  only  two  close  friends  Rosanne  could  boast, 
had  fallen  out  with  the  latter  at  a  ball  where  she  was 
chaperoning  the  two  girls.  From  a  little  misunder- 
standing about  a  dance,  a  serious  quarrel  had  arisen. 
Rosanne,  considering  herself  engaged  for  the  seveath 
waltz  to  Major  Satchwell,  had  kept  it  for  him  only 
to  find  that  Mrs.  Valpy,  having  in  error  written  his 
name  down  for  the  same  dance  instead  of  the  next, 
had  kept  him  to  it,  with  the  result  that  Rosanne 
was  obliged  to  "sit  it  out,"  a  proceeding  not  at  all 
agreeable  to  her  as  the  best  dancer  in  Kimberley. 
She  had  been  in  a  fury,  and,  when  the  two  came 
to  her  at  the  end  of  the  dance,  she  did  not  disguise 
her  annoyance.  Major  Satchwell  apologized  and  ex- 
plained the  error  away  as  best  he  could,  knowing 
himself  in  the  wrong  for  having  been  prevailed  upon 
by  Mrs.  Valpy;  but  the  latter  aggravated  the  offence 
by  laughing  merrily  over  it  and  saying,  with  a  touch 
of  malice: 

"After  all,  you  know,  Rosanne,  I'm  the  married 
woman,  and  if  there  was  a  doubt  I  should  have  the 
benefit  of  it  before  a  mere  girl.  Besides,  I'm  sure  it 


Rosanne  Ozanne  189 

did  you  good  to  see,  for  once,  what  it  feels  like  to  be 
a  wall-flower." 

Rosanne  gave  her  a  look  that  quenched  her  merri- 
ment, and,  she  declared,  made  her  feel  queer  all  the 
evening;  and  when,  in  the  dressing-room  later,  she 
tried  to  make  it  up  with  Rosanne,  she  was  coldly 
snubbed.  She  then  angrily  remarked  that  it  was  the 
last  time  she  would  chaperon  a  jealous  and  bad- 
tempered  girl  to  a  dance,  and  left  the  sisters  to  go 
home  with  another  married  friend. 

The  next  day  her  prize  Pom,  which,  because  she 
had  no  child,  she  foolishly  adored,  disappeared  and 
was  never  seen  again;  and  a  few  days  later  her  husband 
fell  very  ill  of  pneumonia.  On  the  day  of  the  biggest 
race-meeting  of  the  season,  he  was  not  expected  to 
live,  and  on  the  night  of  the  club  ball  he  had  a  serious 
relapse,  so  that  Violet  Valpy,  who  adored  racing  and 
dancing,  missed  both  these  important  fixtures.  In 
the  meantime,  Major  Satchwell  was  thrown  from  his 
horse  and  broke  a  leg. 

Of  course  it  was  foolish,  even  blasphemous,  to 
point  any  connection  between  Rosanne  and  these 
things — Mrs.  Ozanne  said  so  to  herself  ten  times  an 
hour — but,  in  their  procedure,  there  was  such  a 
striking  similarity  to  all  Rosanne' s  "quarrel-cases," 
that  the  poor  woman  could  not  help  adding  them  to 
the  black  list.  Just  as  she  could  not  help  observing 
that,  after  the  three  events,  Rosanne  cheered  up 
wonderfully  and  came  out  of  the  gloomy  abstraction 
which  always  enveloped  her  when  she  was  suffering 
from  annoyance  at  the  hands  of  others  and  left  her 
when  the  offence  had  been  mysteriously  expiated 
by  the  offenders.  Mrs.  Ozanne  was  indeed  deeply 
troubled.  The  disappearance  of  the  Pom  was  bad 


Rosanne  Ozanne 


enough;  but,  after  all,  George  Valpy  had  nearly 
died,  while  poor  Everard  Satchwell  would  limp  for 
life.  It  had  once  been  supposed  that  he  and  Rosanne 
were  fond  of  each  other  and  might  make  a  match  of  it. 
Mrs.  Ozanne  herself  had  believed  that  the  girl  liked 
him  more  than  a  little;  but  evidently  this  was  not  so, 
or  —  the  worried  woman  did  not  finish  the  thought, 
even  in  her  own  mind,  which  was  now  busy  with 
further  problems  connected  with  her  beautiful,  dark 
daughter. 

Rosanne  had  always  shown  a  great  love  for  jewels. 
As  a  child,  coloured  stones  were  most  popular  with 
her,  but  since  she  grew  up  she  had  transferred  her 
passion  to  diamonds,  and,  though  her  mother  pointed 
out  that  such  jewels  were  not  altogether  suitable  to  a 
young  girl,  she  had  gradually  acquired  quite  a  number 
of  them  and  wore  them  with  extraordinary  keenness 
of  pleasure.  Some  she  had  obtained  in  exchange  for 
jewels  that  had  been  gifts  from  her  mother  or  birthday 
presents  from  old  friends  of  the  family,  her  devour- 
ing passion  for  the  white,  sparkling  stones  apparently 
burning  up  all  sentimental  values.  Even  a  string  of 
beautiful  pearls  —  one  of  two  necklaces  John  Ozanne 
had  invested  his  first  savings  in  for  his  twin  daughters 
—  had  gone  by  the  board  in  exchange  for  a  couple 
of  splendid  single-stone  rings.  An  emerald  pendant 
that  had  come  from  Mrs.  Ozanne's  side  of  the  family, 
and  been  given  to  Rosanne  on  her  seventeenth  birth- 
day, had  been  parted  with  also,  to  the  mother's  in- 
tense chagrin,  Rosanne  having  thrown  it  into  a 
collection  of  jewels  which  she  exchanged,  with  an 
additional  sum  of  money,  for  a  little  neck-circlet  of 
small  but  very  perfect  stones  that  was  the  surprise  and 
envy  of  all  her  girl  friends. 


Rosanne  Ozanne  191 

She  possessed,  also,  a  fine  pendant  and  several 
brooches,  and  was,  moreover,  constantly  adding  to 
her  stock.  It  was  her  mother's  belief  that  most  of 
her  generous  allowance  of  pocket-money  went  in  this 
direction,  and  more  than  once  she  expostulated  with 
her  daughter  on  the  subject.  But,  as  may  have  been 
already  guessed,  Rosanne  was  not  made  of  malleable 
clay,  or  the  mother's  hands  of  the  iron  that  moulds 
destinies.  So  the  strange,  dark  daughter  continued 
to  do  as  she  chose  in  the  matter  of  jewels  and,  in- 
deed, every  other  matter. 

Not  the  least  of  the  reasons  for  Mrs.  Ozanne's 
disapproval  of  her  daughter's  jewel  transactions  was 
the  fact  that  they  took  the  girl  into  all  sorts  of  places 
and  among  odd,  mean  people.  She  was  hand  and 
glove  with  every  Jew  and  Gentile  diamond-dealer 
in  the  place,  but  she  also  knew  a  number  of  other 
dealers  of  whom  reputable  dealers  took  no  cognizance, 
and  who  dwelt  behind  queer,  dingy  shops  whose 
windows  displayed  little,  and  where  business  was 
carried  on  in  some  gloomy  inner  room.  Certainly, 
Mrs.  Ozanne  neither  guessed  at  the  existence  of  such 
people  nor  her  daughter's  acquaintance  with  them. 
It  was  enough  for  the  poor  woman  that  the  sight  of 
Rosanne  sauntering  in  and  out  of  jeweller's  shops, 
leaning  over  counters,  peering  at  fine  stones  or  holding 
them  up  to  the  light,  was  a  well-known  one  in  Kim- 
berley,  and  that  many  people  gossiped  about  the 
scandal  of  such  proceedings  and  blamed  Mrs.  Ozanne 
for  letting  the  headstrong  girl  do  these  things. 

However,  it  was  not  the  thought  of  people's  criti- 
cism on  this  point  that  was  now  troubling  Mrs. 
Ozanne,  but  a  matter  far  more  disquieting.  She  had 
begun  to  realize  that  Rosanne,  though  she  had  long 


IQ2  Rosanne  Ozanne 

since  exchanged  away  all  her  earlier  jewels  for  dia- 
monds, was  still  increasing  her  stock  of  the  latter  in  a 
way  that  could  not  possibly  be  accounted  for  by  her 
dress  allowance;  for  she  was  fond  of  clothes,  and  her 
reputation  as  the  best-dressed  girl  in  Kimberley  cost 
heavily.  But  even  if  she  had  spent  the  whole  year's 
allowance  in  lump  at  the  jewellers',  it  would  not  have 
paid  for  the  beautiful  stones  she  had  lately  displayed. 

On  the  night  of  the  club  ball,  for  instance,  in  a 
room  packed  with  pretty  women  beautifully  gowned 
and  jewelled,  Rosanne  blazed  forth,  a  radiant  figure 
that  put  everyone  else  in  the  shade.  In  a  particu- 
larly rare  golden-red  shade  of  orange  tulle,  her  fault- 
less shoulders  quite  bare,  her  long  throat  and  small 
dark  head  superbly  held  and  ablaze  with  jewels,  she 
was  a  vision  of  fire.  She  looked  like  a  single  flame 
that  had  become  detached  from  some  great  con- 
flagration and  was  swaying  and  dancing  through  the 
world  alone.  She  shone  and  sparkled  and  flickered, 
and  was  the  cynosure  of  all  eyes.  Mrs.  Ozanne  had 
never  been  so  proud  of  her — and  so  perturbed.  For 
where  had  that  new  diamond  spray  of  maidenhair  fern 
come  from,  that  shone  so  gloriously  against  the  glossy 
bands  and  curls  of  dark  hair;  and  whence  the  single 
stone,  that,  like  a  great  dewdrop,  hung  on  her  breast, 
suspended  by  a  platinum  chain  so  fine  as  to  be  almost 
invisible?  Other  people  were  asking  these  questions 
also,  and  once  the  distracted  mother,  lingering  in  a 
cool  corner  of  the  balcony  while  her  daughters  were 
dancing,  heard  the  voice  of  an  acquaintance  saying 
acidly: 

"What  a  fool  the  mother  is!  She  must  be  ruining 
herself  to  buy  that  girl  diamonds  to  trick  herself 
out  in — like  a  peacock!" 


Rosanne  Ozanne  193 

Rosanne  did  not  look  like  a  peacock  at  all,  but  like 
fire  and  water  made  incarnate.  The  diamonds  she 
wore  seemed  as  much  a  part  of  her  natural  element 
as  her  hair  and  eyes  and  the  tinted  ivory  flesh  of  her. 
Mrs.  Ozanne  knew  it,  and  so  did  the  speaker,  who 
was  also  the  mother  of  three  plain  daughters.  But 
that  did  not  bring  balm  to  Sophia  Ozanne's  heart, 
or  did  it  comfort  her  soul  that  Sir  Denis  Harlenden, 
the  distinguished  traveller  and  hunter,  after  some 
weeks  of  apparent  dangling  at  Rosanne's  heels,  was 
now  paying  such  open  and  unmistakable  court  that 
all  other  mothers  could  not  but  sit  up  and  enviously 
take  notice.  Rosalie,  too,  it  was  plain,  had  a  little 
hook  in  the  heart  of  Richard  Gardner,  a  promising 
young  advocate  and  one  of  the  best  matches  in 
Kimberley.  But  what  booted  it  to  Sophia  Ozanne 
to  triumph  over  other  mothers  when  her  mind  was 
filled  with  forebodings  and  unhappy  problems?  She 
tried  solving  one  of  these  on  arriving  home  after  the 
ball,  but  with  no  very  great  success. 

In  the  dim-lit  hall  of  Tiptree  House — a  lofty, 
pleasant  room  arranged  as  a  lounge — they  all  lingered 
a  few  moments.  Rosalie,  with  a  dreaming  look  in 
her  blue  eyes,  stood  sipping  a  glass  of  hot  milk. 
Rosanne  had  thrown  off  her  white  velvet  cloak  and 
flung  herself  and  her  crushed  tulle  into  a  great  arm- 
chair. Mrs.  Ozanne,  with  a  cup  of  chocolate  in  her 
hand,  looked  old  and  weary — though  in  point  of 
years  she  was  still  a  young  woman. 

"Rosanne,"  she  ventured,  "a  lot  of  people  were 
remarking  on  your  diamonds  tonight." 

"Yes?"    said    the   girl   carelessly.     Her   thoughts 
seemed  elsewhere,  and  she  did  not  look  happy,  in 
spite  of  the  success  that  had  been  hers  that  evening. 
13 


194  Rosanne  Ozanne 

"Yes;  even  Dick —  '  put  in  Rosalie  timidly,  then 
corrected  herself — "even  Mr.  Gardner  noticed  them, 
and  rather  wondered,  I  think,  how  you  came  to  be 
wearing  such  beautiful  stones." 

Rosanne  sat  up  swiftly. 

"  Dick  Gardner  had  better  mind  his  own  business," 
she  said  quickly,  "or  he  will  be  sorry.  I  never  liked 
that  man." 

Rosalie  turned  pale  Mrs.  Ozanne  braced  herself 
to  the  defence  of  her  gentle,  little,  fair  daughter. 

"  But,  my  dear,  it  is  not  only  Mr.  Gardner;  I  heard 
many  people  saying  things — that  I  must  be  ruining 
myself  to  buy  you  such  jewels,  and  that ' 

"Well,  you're  not,  mother,  are  you?"  Rosanne 
had  risen  and  stood,  smiling  her  subtle,  ironical  smile. 

"No,  dear,  of  course  not;  but  I  feel  very  uneasy, 
and  I  should  like  to  know " 

"You  need  never  feel  uneasy  about  me,  mother. 
I  am  well  able  to  take  care  of  myself  and  mind  my 
own  affairs" — she  began  to  move  out  of  the  room — 
"and  I  also  know  how  to  deal  with  interfering  people 
who  try  to  mind  them  for  me.  Don't  worry,  mother 
dear,  but  go  to  bed.  You  look  tired." 

The  door  closed  behind  her.  Rosalie  threw  herself 
into  her  mother's  arms. 

"Oh,  mother,  she  meant  that  for  Dick!"  she  cried, 
and  burst  into  tears.  Mrs.  Ozanne,  trembling  herself, 
strove  to  comfort  her  child. 

"Nonsense,  darling,  she's  only  cross  and  tired. 
She  did  not  mean  anything.  Besides,  what  can — " 
She  faltered  and  broke  off. 

"What  can't  she  do?"  sobbed  Rosalie.  "And 
Dick  did,  he  did  say  that  everyone  was  amazed  at 
her  diamonds — and  so  they 'were." 


Rosanne  Ozanne  195 

"But  what  is  all  this  about  Dick,  dear?"  asked  her 
mother,  with  a  tender  little  smile.  The  subject  was 
changed,  as  she  meant  it  to  be. 

"Oh,  mummie,  we're  engaged!  I  was  only  waiting 
for  Rosanne  to  go  to  tell  you;  and  I  was  so  happy." 

"And  you  will  go  on  being  happy,  darling.  He 
is  a  splendid  fellow — and  a  good  man,  too.  Nothing 
shall  happen  to  prevent  your  being  the  happiest 
pair  alive,"  comforted  Mrs.  Ozanne,  and,  with  croon- 
ing, motherly  words,  herded  Rosalie  to  bed.  But 
she  herself  stayed  sleepless  for  many  hours. 

"Rosanne,"  she  said,  at  lunch  the  next  day,  before 
Rosalie  came  in,  "  I  think  you  ought  to  know  that 
your  sister  is  engaged  to  Richard  Gardner." 

Rosanne  started  and  stared  at  her  mother  in  silence 
for  a  moment.  It  even  seemed  to  Mrs.  Ozanne  that  a 
little  of  the  b  ight  colour  left  her  cheek. 

"  It  happened  last  night,  and  he  is  coming  to  see  me 
this  afternoon." 

Then  Rosanne  said  a  queer  thing. 

"  I  can't  help  that."  Her  face  had  a  brooding, 
enigmatic  look,  and  she  seemed  to  be  staring  at  her 
mother  without  seeing  her.  "  I'm  sorry,  but  I  can't 
help  it,"  she  repeated  slowly. 

"Help  it!"  Mrs.  Ozanne's  eyes  took  on  a  haggard 
look.  "What  do  you  mean,  dear?" 

"Nothing,"  said  the  girl  abruptly,  and  began  to 
talk  about  something  else  as  Rosalie  came  into  the 
room.  No  more  was  said  about  the  engagement, 
and  Rosanne,  after  hurrying  through  her  lunch  and 
barely  eating  anything,  jumped  up  and  hurried  away 
with  the  announcement  that  she  was  going  down 
to  Kitty  Drummund's  and  would  not  be  back  to 
tea. 


196  Rosanne  Ozanne 

Kitty  Drummund  was  that  other  close  friend  of 
whom  mention  has  already  been  made.  A  young 
married  woman,  her  husband  was  manager  of  one  of 
the  big  c  mpounds  belonging  to  the  De  Beers  Com- 
pany. A  compound  is  an  enormous  yard  fenced 
with  corrugated  iron,  inside  which  dwell  several 
hundreds  of  natives  employed  down  in  the  mines. 
These  natives  are  kept  inside  the  compounds  for 
spells  of  three  to  six  months,  according  to  contract, 
and  during  that  time  are  not  allowed  to  stir  out  for 
any  purpose  whatsoever,  except  to  go  underground, 
the  shaft-head  being  in  the  enclosure.  At  the  end 
of  their  contracts,  they  are  allowed  to  return  to  their 
kraals,  after  having  been  rigorously  searched  to  make 
certain  that  they  have  no  diamonds  on  them.  Scores 
of  white  men  are  employed  in  the  business  of  guarding, 
watching,  and  searching  the  natives,  and  it  was  over 
these  men  and,  indirectly,  over  the  natives,  also,  that 
Leonard  Drummund  was  manager,  his  job  obliging 
him  and  his  wife  to  live  far  from  the  fashionable 
quarter  of  Kimberley. 

Their  house,  in  fact,  though  outside  the  compound, 
was  close  beside  it  and  within  the  grounds  of  the 
company,  being  fenced  off  from  the  town  by  a  high 
wire  fence  The  only  entrance  into  this  enclosure 
was  an  enormous  iron  gate  through  which  all  friends 
of  the  Drummunds  or  visitors  to  the  compound  had  to 
pass,  under  the  scrutinizing  stare  of  the  man  on  guard, 
who  had  also  the  right  to  challenge  persons  as  to  what 
business  took  them  into  the  company's  grounds.  It 
was  thus  that  De  Beers  guarded,  and  still  do  guard 
to  this  day,  the  diamond  industry  from  thieves  and 
pirates,  and  would-be  members  of  the  illicit  diamond- 
buying  trade. 


Rosanne  Oxanne  197 

Through  this  big  gate,  on  the  afternoon  after  the 
club  ball,  Rosanne  passed  unchallenged,  as  she  was 
in  the  habit  of  doing  four  or  five  times  a  week,  being 
well  known  to  all  the  guards  as  a  friend  of  Mrs. 
Drummund's  Many  of  the  guards  were  acquaint- 
ances of  hers,  also,  for,  when  th  y  were  not  in  the  act  of 
guarding,  they  were  young  men  about  town,  qualify- 
ing for  bigger  positions  in  the  company's  employ. 
The  young  fellow  on  guard  that  day  had  danced  with 
Rosanne  the  night  before,  and  when  she  went  through 
she  gave  him  a  smile  and  a  friendly  nod.  He  thought 
what  a  lovely,  proud  little  face  she  had,  and  that  that 
fellow  Harlenden  would  be  a  lucky  man  to  get  her, 
even  if  he  were  a  baronet. 

Kitty  Drummund,  among  cushions  and  flowers, 
behind  the  green  blinds  of  her  veranda,  was  waiting 
in  a  hammock  for  her  friend.  For  a  very  happy  rea- 
son she  had  been  obliged  to  forego  gaieties  for  a  time; 
but  her  interest  in  them  remained,  and  she  was  dy- 
ing to  hear  all  about  the  ball.  Rosanne,  however, 
seemed  far  from  being  in  her  usual  vein  of  quips  and 
quirks  and  bright,  ironical  sayings  about  the  world 
in  general.  Indeed,  her  conversation  was  of  the 
most  desultory  description,  and  Kitty  gleaned  little 
more  news  of  her  than  she  had  already  found  in  the 
morning  newspaper.  Between  detached  snatches  of 
talk,  the  girl  fell  into  long  moments  of  moody  silence, 
and  even  tea  and  cigarettes  did  not  unknit  her  brow 
or  loose  her  tongue.  Kitty,  who  not  only  expected 
to  be  entertained  about  the  dance  but  had  also  ex- 
cellent reasons  for  supposing  she  should  hear  some- 
thing very  exciting  and  important  about  Rosanne 
herself,  was  vaguejy  troubled  and  disappointed.  At 
last  she  ventured  a  gentle  feeler. 


198  Rosanne  Ozanne 

"What  about  Sir  Denis,  Nan?" 

Rosanne  turned  a  thoughtful  gaze  on  her,  and  this 
time  a  little  of  her  old  mockery  glimmered  in  it. 

"  He  still  survives." 

"Don't  be  silly,  darling.  Len  heard  this  morning 
at  the  club  — what  everyone  is  saying — you  know — 
how  much  he  is  in  love  with  you,  and  that  he's  sure 
to  propose  soon." 

"He  proposed  last  night,  Kit.     We  are  engaged." 

Kitty  sat  up  with  dancing  eyes. 

"And  you've  been  keeping  it  back  all  this  time! 
Oh,  Rosanne,  how  could  you?  Such  a  darling  man! 
You  are  lucky.  What  a  lovely  bride  you'll  make! 
You  must  put  it  off  until  I  can  come.  Shall  you  be 
married  in  bright  colours,  as  you  always  said  you 
would?  And  you'll  be  Lady  Harlenden!" 

Kitty  was  not  a  snob,  but  titles  didn't  often  come 
her  way  and  she  couldn't  help  taking  a  whole-hearted 
delight  in  the  fact  that  Rosanne  would  have  one. 

"  I  shall  never  be  Lady  Harlenden.  I  don't  mean 
to  marry  him,  Kit." 

" Don't  mean  to  marry  him!"  Kitty  Drummund's 
lips  fell  apart  and  all  the  dancing  excitement  went 
out  of  her  eyes.  She  sat  and  stared.  At  last  she 
said  wonderingly  but  with  conviction: 

"But  you  care  for  him,  Rosanne!" 

"I  know,"  said  the  other  sombrely.  "I  love  him. 
I  love  him,  and  1  can't  resist  letting  him  know  and 
taking  his  love  for  a  little  while.  It  is  so  wonderful. 
Oh,  Kit,  it  is  so  wonderful!  But  I  can  never  marry 
him.  I  am  too  wicked." 

"Wicked!" 

Kitty  stared  at  her.  The  lovely  dark  face  had 
become  extraordinarily  distorted  and  anguished,  and 


Rosanne  Ozanne  199 

seemed  actually  to  age  under  Kitty's  eyes.  The  girl 
put  up  her  hands  and  pressed  them  to  her  temples. 

"Oh,  I  am  so  unhappy,"  she  muttered,  "and  1 
can't  tell  any  one!  Mother  and  Rosalie  don't  under- 
stand— 

Kitty  Drummund  was  only  frivolous  on  the  sur- 
face. At  core  she  was  sound,  a  good  woman  and  a 
loyal  friend.  She  took  the  girl's  hands. 

"Tell  me,  dear,"  she  said  gravely;  "I'll  try  and 
help." 

But  Rosanne  shook  her  head.  The  agonized, 
tortured  look  passed  slowly  from  her  features,  and 
her  face  became  once  more  composed,  though  white 
as  ashes.  Her  eyes  were  dull  as  burnt-out  fires. 

"  1  can't,"  she  said  heavily.  "  I  can't  tell  any  one; 
1  don't  even  understand  it  myself." 

She  fell  into  silence  again,  but  presently  turned  to 
Kit  with  a  stern  look,  half  commanding,  half  imploring. 

"Swear  you'll  never  tell  any  one  what  I've  said, 
Kit — about  the  engagement  or  anything  else." 

Kitty  promised  solemnly. 

"Not  even  Len,"  insisted  Rosanne. 

"Not  even  Len.  But,  oh,  Nan,  I  shall  pray  that 
it  will  all  come  right!" 

"  Prayers  are  no  good,"  said  Rosanne,  with  abrupt 
bitterness.  "God  knows  I've  given  them  a  fair 
chance!" 

"  Darling,  one  never  knows  when  a  prayer  may  be 
answered,  but  it  will  be — sometime." 

Rosanne  began  suddenly  to  talk  of  something  else, 
and  the  strange  incident  ended;  for  when  Rosanne 
wished  to  drop  a  subject  she  dropped  it,  and  put  her 
foot  on  it  in  such  a  way  that  it  could  not  be  picked 
up  again.  Besides,  this  was  scarcely  one  on  which 


2oo  Rosanne  Ozanne 

Kitty,  however  much  she  desired  to  help,  could  press 
her  friend.  So  she  did  the  wisest  thing  she  could 
think  of  under  the  circumstances — made  the  girl  go 
indoors  to  the  piano  and  play  to  her.  She  knew 
that  Rosanne  gave,  and  was  given  to,  by  music  in 
a  way  that  is  only  possible  to  deep,  inarticulate  natures 
such  as  possess  the  musician's  gift.  One  had  only  to 
listen  to  her  music,  thought  Kitty,  to  know  that 
there  were  depths  in  her  that  no  woman  would  ever 
fathom,  though  a  man  might,  some  day.  Denis 
Harlenden  might — if  she  would  let  him. 

Listening,  as  she  lay  in  her  hammock,  to  the  wild, 
strange  chords  flung  from  under  Rosanne's  fingers, 
and  again  the  plaintive,  tender  notes  that  stole  out 
like  wounded  birds  and  fluttered  away  on  broken 
wings  to  the  sunlight,  Kitty  realized  that  she  was 
an  ear-witness  to  the  interpretation  of  a  soul's  pain. 
Though  she  had  never  heard  of  Jean  Paul  Richter's 
plaint  to  music — "  Thou  speakest  to  me  of  those  things 
which  in  all  my  endless  days  I  have  found  not,  nor  shall 
find" — something  of  the  torment  embodied  in  those 
exquisitely  bitter  words  came  to  her  through  Rosanne's 
music,  and  she  was  able  to  realize  some  tithe  of  what 
the  girl  was  suffering. 

Yet,  in  the  end,  Rosanne  came  out  of  the  drawing- 
room  with  the  shadows  gone  from  her  face  and  all 
the  old  mocking,  glancing  life  back  in  it.  If  she  had 
given  of  her  torment  to  music,  music,  whether  for 
good  or  ill,  had  restored  to  her  the  vivid  and  delicate 
power  which  made  up  her  strangely  forceful  personal- 
ity. She  was  hurriedly  drawing  on  her  gloves. 

"I've  just  remembered  the  Chilvers'  dinner-party 
tonight  and  must  fly.  You  know  how  Molly  Chilvers 
nags  if  one  is  late  for  her  dull  old  banquets." 


Rosanne  Ozanne  201 

She  kissed  Kitty,  tucked  a  rug  round  her,  for  the 
cool  of  evening  was  beginning  to  fall,  and  went  her 
ways.  But  as  she  followed  the  path  that  led  through 
the  blue-ground  heaps,  past  the  iron  compound,  and 
down  to  the  big  gate,  she  was  thinking  that  if  Molly 
Chilvers'  banquets  were  dull,  the  banquet  of  life 
was  not,  and  it  was  the  banquet  of  life  she  had  put 
her  lips  to  since  she  knew  and  loved  Denis  Harlenden. 
She  was  to  meet  him  tonight!  That  thought  had 
power  enough  to  drive  out  the  little  snakes  of  despair 
and  desolation  that  had  been  eating  her  heart  all  day. 
Let  the  morrows,  with  their  pain  of  parting,  take 
care  of  themselves!  Today,  it  was  good  to  be  alive! 
That  was  her  philosophy  as  she  went,  light-foot, 
through  the  blue-ground  heaps. 

There  was  no  one  about  in  the  big  outer  enclosure. 
The  monotonous  chanting  of  Kafir  songs  came  over 
the  iron  walls  of  the  compound,  the  murmuring  of 
many  voices,  clank  of  pot  and  pan,  smell  of  fires,  and 
the  soft,  regular  beat  of  some  drumlike  native  instru- 
ment. The  day-shift  boys  had  come  up  from  the 
mines  and  were  preparing  their  evening  meal. 

Passers-by  were  never  supposed  to  go  near  to  the 
walls  of  the  compound,  but  in  one  place  the  path 
wound  within  a  yard  or  two  of  it,  and,  as  it  happened, 
this  spot  was  just  out  of  eye-reach  of  the  towers  which 
stood  at  the  four  corners  of  the  compound  (unless 
the  guards  popped  their  heads  out  of  the  window, 
which  they  rarely  did).  True,  the  guard  at  the  gate 
commanded  a  full  view  of  the  spot,  but  if  he  had  been 
looking  when  Rosanne  reached  it,  he  would  only 
have  seen  her  stooping  to  tie  up  her  shoe.  He  was 
not  looking,  however.  It  was  not  his  custom,  even 
though  it  might  be  his  duty,  to  spy  on  Mrs.  Drum- 


2O2  Rosanne  Ozanne 

mund's  visitors,  especially  such  a  visitor  as  Miss 
Ozanne.  Therefore,  no  one  saw  that,  when  she  had 
finished  tying  up  her  shoe,  she  leaned  forward  from 
the  path  and  slid  out  her  hand  to  a  tiny  mound  of 
earth  that  lay  near  the  compound  wall — a  little 
mound  that  might  very  well  have  been  pushed  up 
by  a  mole  on  the  other  side — dived  her  fingers  into 
the  earth,  and  withdrew  a  small  package  wrapped 
in  a  dirty  rag.  Then,  swiftly  she  thrust  something 
back  into  the  earth,  smoothed  the  little  heap  level,  rose 
from  tying  her  shoe,  and  lightly  sauntered  on  her 
way.  The  next  time  she  had  occasion  to  use  her 
handkerchief  she  slipped  the  little  package  into 
her  pocket,  and  so,  empty-handed  except  for  her 
sunshade,  she  passed  through  the  big  gate. 

At  seven  o'clock  that  evening,  the  carriage  stood 
before  the  door  of  Tiptree  House,  waiting  to  convey 
the  Ozanne  family  to  the  Chilvers'  dinner-party, 
and  Mrs.  Ozanne,  in  black  velvet  and  old  lace,  waited 
in  the  hall  for  her  two  daughters.  She  sat  tapping 
with  her  fan  upon  a  little  Benares  table  before  her, 
turning  over  in  her  mind,  as  she  had  been  doing  all 
the  afternoon,  two  sentences  from  a  letter  Richard 
Gardner  had  sent  her.  It  was  an  honourable  and 
manly  letter,  putting  forward  his  feelings  for  Rosalie 
and  the  fact  that  he  had  already  asked  her  to  be  his 
wife.  He  had  meant,  he  wrote,  to  call  that  afternoon 
on  Mrs.  Ozanne  and  ask  verbally  for  her  consent 
to  the  engagement,  but  something  had  happened 
to  prevent  his  coming.  However,  he  hoped,  all  being 
well,  to  call  instead  on  the  following  day  and  put  his 
position  before  Mrs.  Ozanne. 

"Something  has  happened!"     "All  "being  well  I" — 


Rosanne  Ozanne  203 

those  were  the  phrases  that  repeated  themselves  in 
Sophia  Ozanne's  mind  over  and  over  again,  rattling 
like  two  peas  in  an  empty  drum.  It  was  on  account 
of  them  that  she  had  refrained  from  showing  Rosalie 
the  note;  but  her  precaution  was  wasted,  for  the  girl 
had  also  received  a  letter  from  her  lover,  and,  curi- 
ously enough,  it  contained  the  two  sentences  which 
were  so  vividly  present  in  Mrs.  Ozanne's  conscious- 
ness. Rosalie  had  repeated  them  to  her  mother  at 
tea-time,  and  in  the  quiet  drawing-room,  as  the 
two  women  sat  looking  at  each  other  with  apprehen- 
sive eyes  across  the  teacups,  the  seemingly  innocent 
words  sounded  strangely  pregnant  of  trouble. 

Perhaps  that  was  why  Rosalie  looked  less  pretty 
than  usual  as  she  came  in  and  joined  her  mother. 
Her  white  satin  gown  gave  her  a  ghostly  air,  and  the 
forget-me-not  eyes  had  faint  pink  rims  to  them  that 
were  unbecoming.  The  mother  had  barely  time  to 
make  these  mental  observations  when  Rosanne  en- 
tered. To  their  surprise,  she  was  still  in  her  after- 
noon gown  and  hat. 

"  I'm  not  going  to  the  Chilvers'  tonight,"  she  said 
rapidly.  "I've  already  sent  Molly  a  message,  but 
please  make  her  my  further  excuses,  mother." 

"But,  my  dear,"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Ozanne  reproach- 
fully, "you'll  spoil  her  party!  I  think  you  ought  to 
make  an  effort,  even  if  you  are  late." 

"Oh,  no,  mother;  I  can't.  Besides,  it  was  silly  of 
her  to  give  a  party  the  night  after  a  ball,  when  every- 
one is  fagged  out."  She  looked  the  picture  of  glowing 
health  as  she  said  it — more  like  some  bright  wild 
mountain-flower  than  a  girl. 

"  I'm  quite  sure  you  are  not  so  tired  as  either  Rosalie 
or  myself,"  pursued  her  mother  warmly,  "and  I 


204  Rosanne  Ozanne 

think  that  at  least  you  might  have  let  me  know  of 
your  decision  earlier." 

"Yes,  mother;  I  suppose  I  might,  though  I  don't 
quite  know  what  difference  it  would  have  made.  I 
beg  your  pardon,  anyway.  But  I  don't  see  why  you 
go,  either,  if  you  are  tired.  Rosalie  looks  dead  beat." 
She  was  looking  at  her  sister  in  an  oddly  tender  way. 

"Nothing  wrong,  I  hope,  Rosie?"  she  asked,  in  a 
voice  so  soft  and  appealing  that  Mrs.  Ozanne  would 
not  have  been  astonished  if  the  gentle  and  easily 
moved  Rosalie  had  responded  by  pouring  out  her 
heart.  But,  instead,  she  turned  away,  biting  a 
trembling  lip,  and  put  on  her  wraps  without  speaking. 
Rosanne  shrugged  her  shoulders  and  went  out  of  the 
room  in  her  rapid,  silent  way. 

"Mother,  I  feel  I  hate  her!"  Rosalie  muttered, 
with  burning  eyes.  Her  mother  was  profoundly 
shocked. 

"Oh,  hush,  my  darling!"  she  whispered.  "You 
don't  know  what  you  are  saying." 

Linking  her  arm  in  her  daughter's,  she  led  the  way 
in  silence  to  the  carriage. 

Rosanne,  meanwhile,  went  into  the  dining-room 
and  had  something  cold  brought  to  her  there  by 
Maria,  the  old  Cape  cook.  All  the  other  servants 
were  out  for  the  evening,  as  was  the  rule  on  the  rare 
occasions  when  the  family  did  not  entertain.  Having 
dined,  the  girl  went  to  her  bedroom.  The  house  was 
of  the  bungalow  type — everything  on  the  ground 
floor  and  no  upper  stories.  All  the  bedrooms  gave 
on  to  the  great  veranda  that  ran  round  the  house,  but 
Rosanne's  room,  being  at  the  corner,  had  two  French 
windows,  one  facing  the  front  garden  with  a  full  view 
of  the  tennis-courts  and  drive,  the  other,  shaded  by 


Rosanne  Ozanne  205 

creepers  and  a  great  tree-fern,  looked  out  to  the  clus- 
tered trees  and  winding  paths  of  the  side  gardens. 
It  was  from  this  door  that  Rosanne  emerged,  half  an 
hour  later,  dressed  in  something  so  subtly  night- 
coloured  that  she  looked  like  a  grey  moth  flickering 
through  the  trees  of  the  garden.  Softly  she  let  herself 
out  of  the  little  side  gate  chiefly  used  by  the  servants, 
and,  slipping  from  shadow  to  shadow  in  the  dim 
lights  of  quiet  back  streets,  she  made  her  way  toward 
the  commercial  part  of  the  town.  The  main  street — 
that  same  Du  Toit's  Pan  Road  where  John  Ozanne's 
hotel  had  once  flourished — was  brightly  lighted  by 
large  arc-lamps,  but  never  once  did  Rosanne  come 
within  range  of  these.  It  was  in  a  dingy  lane  giving 
of?  from  the  big  thoroughfare  that  she  at  last  stopped 
before  a  shop  whose  shuttered  window  bore  the 
legend —  "Syke  Ravenal:  Jeweller."  Upon  an  un- 
distinguished looking  side  door  she  knocked  gently, 
distinctly,  three  times.  It  opened  as  if  by  magic, 
and,  like  a  shadow,  she  slipped  into  the  darkness 
behind  it. 

Harlenden  was  a  little  early.  Rosanne  had  said 
nine  o'clock,  and  it  wanted,  perhaps,  twenty  minutes 
to  the  hour  when  he  rang  at  Tiptree  House  and  was 
told  by  Maria,  after  a  few  moments'  waiting,  that 
she  could  not  find  Miss  Rosanne  anywhere. 

"Very  well;  I'll  wait  here,"  he  said,  and,  lighting 
a  cigar,  sat  down  in  one  of  the  deep  chairs  in  the 
dimly  lighted  veranda. 

He  was  a  lean,  fair,  well-groomed  man,  with  a 
hard-cut  face  that  told  nothing.  You  had  to  make 
your  own  deductions  from  a  pair  of  stone-grey  eyes, 
a  mouth  close-lipped  without  being  cold,  and  a  manner 


2o6  Rosanne  Ozanne 

not  wanting  in  indications  of  arrogance  that  yet 
pleased  by  a  certain  careless  grace  and  sureness.  As 
Emerson  says,  "  Do  as  you  please,  and  you  may  do 
as  you  please,  for,  in  the  end,  if  your  are  consistent 
you  will  please  the  world."  Perhaps  it  was  his 
unfailing  habit  of  following  out  this  rule  that  made 
the  world  respect  Denis  Harlenden,  even  if  it  were  not 
pleased  with  him.  Certainly,  his  people  would  not 
be  very  pleased  that  he  had  chosen  a  Kimberley  hotel- 
keeper's  daughter  to  carry  on  the  line  of  one  of  the 
oldest  baronetcies  in  England.  But,  to  speak  with 
truth,  he  had  given  neither  his  people  nor  the  Kimber- 
ley Hotel  a  thought  in  the  matter.  He  loved  Rosanne 
for  her  wit,  her  beauty,  her  courage,  a  certain  sports- 
manlike daring  which  showed  in  all  her  actions,  and 
her  unlikeness  to  any  other  woman  he  had  ever 
known.  Moreover,  he  was  certain  that  she  was  the 
one  woman  who  could  keep  his  love  without  boring 
him.  He,  like  Kitty  Drummund,  was  aware  of  un- 
fathomed  depths  in  her,  and  he  was  not  at  all  sure 
that  he  should  like  everything  he  found  in  those 
depths  if  he  ever  fathomed  them.  But,  in  any  case, 
he  preferred  them  to  shallows.  A  shallow  woman 
could  not  have  kept  Denis  Harlenden's  heart  for  a 
week — or  a  day.  He  also  valued  surprises,  and 
Rosanne  was  full  of  surprises. 

She  gave  him  one  now.  At  the  sound  of  a  slight 
crushing  of  gravel  underfoot,  he  had  risen  and  stepped 
toward  the  end  of  the  veranda,  and,  standing  there 
beside  the  great  tree-fern,  he  saw  her  coming  from 
the  side  garden  into  the  faint  rays  of  light  from  the 
house.  She  had  her  two  hands  folded  over  her  breast 
as  though  holding  something  precious  there,  and  her 
face  was  rapt.  He  had  never  before  seen  her  in  that 


Rosanne  Ozanne  207 

odd,  sheathllke  garment  of  silver-grey  velvet.  It 
gave  her,  he  thought,  with  that  brooding  look  on  her 
face  and  her  faintly  smiling  mouth,  an  air  of  moon- 
like  mysteriousness.  Almost  as  silently  as  a  moon- 
beam, she  slid  into  the  veranda  and  would  have 
passed  on  into  her  room  but  that  he  put  his  arms 
round  her  and  drew  her  to  his  heart. 

The  thought  had  come  over  him  suddenly  to  test 
her  courage  and  coolness  thus,  and  she  did  not  dis- 
appoint him.  For  a  moment  he  felt  her  heart  flutter- 
ing like  a  wild  bird  against  his;  then  she  gave  a  little 
low  laugh. 

"Oh,  Denis!"  she  whispered,  against  his  lips.  But 
when  he  let  her  go  he  saw  that  her  face  was  white 
as  milk. 

"You  were  frightened,  then?"  he  questioned. 

"No,  no;  I  knew  at  once  it  was  you — by  the  scent 
of  your  dear  coat."  She  stroked  it  with  one  hand, 
then  made  to  move  away,  but  he  still  held  her.  What 
had  made  her  turn  white,  then,  if  she  were  not  afraid? 

"Let  me  go  away  and  change  my  gown,"  she  said, 
trying  to  edge  away  into  the  dark. 

"But  why?  I  love  it.  You  are  like  a  witch  of 
the  moon  in  it." 

"No;  it  isn't  a  nice  gown,"  she  insisted  childishly 
and  still  tried  to  escape,  but  he  could  be  obstinate, 
too. 

"I  want  you  to  keep  it  on — and,  darling,  darling, 
don't  waste  any  of  the  moments  we  may  be  together! 
You  told  me  yourself  it  could  only  be  an  hour." 

She  gave  a  deep  sigh.  It  was  true.  Moments 
spent  with  him  were  too  precious  to  waste.  There 
might  not  be  so  many  more.  Still,  she  did  not 
abandon  her  plan  to  get  away  from  him  to  her  room, 


2o8  Rosanne  Ozanne 

if  only  for  a  minute.  Gently  she  resisted  his  half- 
movement  to  lead  her  to  a  chair.  He  knew,  by 
now,  that  she  was  holding  something  in  her  left  hand 
which  she  did  not  wish  him  to  see.  They  remained 
standing  by  the  tree-fern,  each  will  striving  for  suprem- 
acy. In  the  meantime,  he  went  on  speaking  in  his 
extraordinary  charming  voice  that  had  power  to  make 
her  heart  ache  with  even  the  memory  of  its  dear 
sound. 

"Not  that  I  can  see  why  I  should  only  have  an 
hour." 

"  Mother  will  be  back  by  ten,"  she  said. 

"Why  shouldn't  she  know  at  once?  I  don't  like 
this  hole-and-corner  business,  Rosanne.  It  is  not 
good  enough  for  you."  He  kissed  her  on  the  lips, 
and  added,  "Or  me." 

Her  face  was  in  shadow,  but  his  was  not,  and  she 
could  see  that  fires  were  lighted  in  the  stone-grey  eyes 
that  banished  all  its  masklike  impassivity  and  brought 
a  wonderful  beauty  into  it.  She  stood  trembling  to 
his  kiss  and  his  voice  and  the  magic  of  her  love  for 
him.  Almost  it  seemed  as  if  she  must  do  as  he  wished. 
But  she  knew  she  must  not.  If  her  mother  once 
knew,  everyone  would  have  to  know,  and  how  brutal 
that  would  be  to  him  when  she  had  to  tell  him  that 
it  must  all  come  to  an  end,  that  she  could  not  and 
would  not  marry  him! 

"You  must  let  me  tell  her  tonight,"  he  was  saying, 
with  quiet  firmness. 

"No,  no!"  she  faltered. 

"Yes.  And  there  is  another  thing;  give  me  your 
left  hand,  Rosanne." 

She  did  not  give  it  so  much  as  that  he  drew  it  from 
behind  her.  It  was  tightly  clenched.  Holding  it  in 


Rosanne  Ozanne  209 

his  own,  he  drew  her  to  a  chair  at  last.  She  seemed 
to  have  no  more  strength  to  resist.  Then,  sitting 
down  before  her,  he  gently  unclenched  one  finger  after 
another  until  what  she  had  hidden  there  lay  sparkling 
in  the  night.  Almost  as  if  it  had  been  something 
evil,  he  shook  it  from  her  palm  into  her  lap,  and  taking 
her  hand  to  his  lips,  kissed  it,  then  placed  upon  the 
third  finger  a  ring. 

"You  must  only  like  the  jewels  I  give  you,  Ros- 
anne," he  said,  with  unveiled  meaning. 

They  sat  there  for  a  long,  aching,  exquisitely  silent 
moment,  her  hand  in  his,  the  great  square  emerald 
set  in  a  wonderful  filigree  and  scrolling  of  gold  on  her 
finger,  the  other  thing  gleaming  with  a  baleful  light 
between  them.  Then  the  spell  broke  with  the  roll 
of  carriage  wheels  on  the  drive.  A  minute  later, 
Mrs.  Ozanne  came  into  the  veranda,  Rosalie  clinging 
to  her  arm.  Harlenden  was  on  his  feet  instantly, 
and,  before  Rosanne  could  intervene,  had  proffered 
his  request  to  speak  to  her  mother.  The  latter  looked 
as  much  dazed  by  his  words  as  his  presence. 

"Not  to  night,  Sir  Denis,  please." 

"It  is  rather  important,"  he  pleaded,  looking  very 
boyish.  But  she  seemed  to  notice  nothing,  and 
shook  her  head. 

"Some  other  time — my  poor  Rosalie  is  ill — in 
trouble;  she  has  heard  some  distressing  news." 

He  drew  back  at  once,  apologizing,  and  a  few 
minutes  later  was  gone.  Rosanne  followed  her 
mother  and  sister  into  the  house,  a  strangely  yearning, 
sorrowful  look  upon  her  face.  Nothing  was  said. 
Rosalie  seemed  half-fainting,  and  her  mother,  still 
supporting  her,  led  her  to  the  door  of  her  bedroom. 
They  disappeared  together.  Rosanne  stared  after 
14 


2io  Rosanne  Ozanne 

them,  but  made  no  attempt  to  help.  When  they 
had  gone,  she  sat  still  in  the  hall,  waiting.  Some- 
times she  looked  at  the  sparkling  thing  in  her  hand 
(she  had  caught  it  up  from  her  lap  when  her  mother 
came  into  the  veranda),  a  slim,  flexible  string  of  dia- 
monds for  weaving  in  the  hair — glowing  and  glimmer- 
ing like  spurts  of  flame  imprisoned  within  frozen 
dewdrops.  Sometimes  she  looked  at  the  great 
emerald  Denis  Harlenden  had  set  on  her  finger.  But 
her  eyes  had  something  of  the  fixed,  unseeing  stare  of 
the  sleep-walker.  At  last  Sophia  Ozanne  came  back 
and  stood  beside  her.  Neither  looked  at  the  other. 

"What  is  it   mother?"  she  asked,  in  a  low  voice. 

"Richard  Gardner  is  very  ill.  They  hoped  it 
was  only  a  sore  throat  that  would  soon  yield  to  treat- 
ment; but  he  went  to  a  specialist  today — that  Doctor 
Stratton  who  came  out  to  see  the  Cape  govern- 
or's throat— and  he  seems  to  think—  Poor  Mrs. 
Ozanne  halted  and  choked  as  if  she  herself  were 
suffering  from  an  affection  of  the  throat.  Rosanne 
still  sat  silent  and  brooding. 

"He  seems  to  think  it  is  something  malignant — 
and,  in  that  case,  he  and  poor  Rosalie — "  She 
broke  down. 

"Will  never  be  able  to  marry,  mother?"  asked 
Rosanne,  not  curiously,  only  sadly,  as  if  she  knew 
already.  Her  mother  nodded. 

"Who  told  you?" 

"  Richard's  brother  was  at  the  Chilvers';  he  thought 
we  had  better  know  at  once." 

Mrs.  Ozanne  sat  down  by  the  little  Benares  table 
and,  resting  her  face  on  her  hands,  began  to  cry 
quietly.  Rosanne  stared  before  her  with  an  absorbed 
stare.  She  seemed  in  a  very  transport  of  grave 


Rosanne  Ozanne  211 

thought.  When  Mrs.  Ozanne  at  length  raised  her 
eyes  for  an  almost  furtive  glance,  she  thought  she 
had  never  seen  anything  so  tragic  as  her  daughter's 
face.  Her  own  was  working  horribly  with  misery 
and  some  urgent  necessity. 

"Rosanne!"  she  stammered  at  last,  afraid  of  the 
sound  of  her  own  words.  "Couldn't  you  do  some- 
thing?" 

The  girl  removed  her  dark  gaze  from  nothingness 
and  transferred  it  to  her  mother's  imploring,  fearful 
eyes. 

"Oh,  mother!"  she  said  quietly.  "Oh,  mother!  I 
am  more  unhappy  than  you  or  Rosalie  can  ever  be!" 


PART  1 1 

ROSALIE  OZANNE  kept  her  bed  for  a  week  or  more. 
She  had  sunk  into  a  sort  of  desolate  lethargy  of  mind 
and  body  from  which  nothing  could  rouse  her.  Her 
mother  was  in  despair.  Richard  Gardner  was  too  ill 
to  come  to  see  the  girl  he  loved,  and  he  did  not  write. 
The  blow  that  had  fallen  upon  his  promising  and 
prosperous  life  seemed  to  have  shattered  his  nerves 
and  benumbed  his  initiative.  He  had  no  words  of 
hope  for  Rosalie;  so  he  said  nothing.  Thus,  in  silence 
and  apart,  the  two  were  suffering  their  young  agony 
of  wrecked  hopes  and  love  laid  on  its  bier. 

Rosanne,  meanwhile,  to  all  appearances,  went  on 
her  way  rejoicing.  For  a  moment,  in  the  shock  of 
mutual  grief  over  Rosalie's  trouble,  she  and  her  mother 
had  drawn  nearer  in  spirit,  and  strange  words  of 
sorrow  and  sympathy,  as  though  dragged  from  her 
very  depths,  had  come  faltering  from  the  girl's  lips. 
But  the  next  day  all  trace  of  such  unaccustomed 
softness  had  disappeared.  She  was  her  gay,  resilient 
self  once  more,  bright  and  hard  as  the  stones  she 
loved  to  wear,  and  more  reserved  and  withdrawn 
from  her  family  than  ever.  She  avoided  both  her 
mother  and  sister  as  much  as  possible,  spending  most 
of  her  time  in  her  own  room  or  with  her  friend  Kitty 
Drummund.  As  usual,  too,  she  was  often  out  riding 
and  driving — but  no  longer  with  Denis  Harlenden. 


Rosanne  Ozanne  213 

Major  Satchwell  had  been  received  back  into  the 
favour  of  her  intimate  friendship,  and  it  was  he  who 
was  always  to  be  found  riding  or  limping  at  her  side. 

Harlenden  had  not  called  at  Tiptree  House  since 
the  night  when,  after  the  Quivers'  dinner-party,  he 
had  requested  an  interview  with  iMrs.  Ozanne  and 
been  asked  to  wait  until  a  more  propitious  moment. 
Indeed,  the  latter,  with  mind  full  of  foreboding  and 
sorrow  for  her  stricken  child,  had  almost  forgotten 
that  he  had  ever  made  such  a  request.  But  Rosanne 
had  not  forgotten.  And  Rosanne  knew  why  her 
lover  stayed  away  from  Tiptree  House.  He  had 
made  his  reason  sufficiently  clear  in  a  letter  she  had 
received  the  morning  after  their  last  meeting  in  the 
veranda.  The  terse  sentences  of  that  letter  were 
like  himself — cold  and  quiet  without,  but  with  the 
burn  of  hidden  fires  beneath  the  surface. 

"Until  you  are  prepared  to  let  the  world  know  how 
things  are  with  us,  I  shall  not  come  again.  And 
another  thing,  Rosanne:  I  love  you.  Your  kiss  is  on 
my  lips,  and  no  other  woman's  lips  shall  ever  efface 
its  exquisite  memory.  You  love  me,  too,  I  think. 
But  do  you  love  me  more  than  certain  other  things? 
If  not,  and  if  you  cannot  be  the  Rosanne  I  wish  you 
to  be,  caring  only  for  such  things  as  are  worthy  of  your 
beauty  and  my  pride,  this  love  of  ours  can  never 
come  to  its  perfection  but  will  have  to  be  rooted 
out  and  crushed  as  a  useless,  hopeless  thing  When 
you  see  this  as  I  do,  send  for  me.  I  shall  not  be 
long  in  coming." 

Curiously  enigmatic  words  if  read  by  any  but  the 
eyes  for  which  they  were  intended.  But  Rosanne 
knew  what  they  meant,  and  read  them  with  her 
teeth  dug  into  her  lip  and  cheeks  pale  as  a  bone. 


214  Rosanne  Ozanne 

The  first  time  she  read  them  she  burst  into  a  furious, 
ringing  laugh,  and  crushing  the  letter  into  a  ball, 
flung  it  into  the  waste-paper  basket  and  went  out. 
That  was  the  afternoon  on  which  she  renewed  her 
friendship  with  Everard  Satchwell.  But  when  she 
came  home  she  sought  the  waste-paper  basket, 
and  taking  out  the  letter,  uncrumpled  it  and  read 
it  again.  Thereafter  she  read  it  many  times.  Some- 
times she  went  to  bed  with  it  crushed  to  her  breast. 
But  she  never  answered  it.  Instead,  she  wrote  to 
Everard  Satchwell  and  completed  the  work,  already 
begun,  of  beguiling  him  back  into  her  life  just  as 
he  was  beginning  to  hope  he  could  do  without  her. 

One  day,  when  she  was  out  riding  with  him,  they 
met  Harlenden  riding  alone.  He  had  a  moody, 
lonely  look  that  wrenched  at  her  heart  for  a  moment 
until  she  saw  the  civilly  indifferent  smile  with  which 
he  returned  her  half-appealing  glance  and  Satchwell's 
cheery  greeting.  As  their  eyes  met,  his  were  so 
empty  of  what  she  knew  they  could  contain  for  her 
that  her  heart  turned  cold  in  her  breast.  For  the 
first  time,  the  well-bred  impassivity  of  his  face  irked 
and  infuriated  her.  She  doubted,  almost  hated  hirrr. 
She  could  have  struck  him  with  her  riding-whip 
because  he  gave  no  sign  of  the  hurt  she  had  dealt 
him,  but,  instead,  her  face  grew  almost  as  smilingly 
masklike  as  his  own;  only  when  she  got  home,  within 
the  refuge  of  her  bedroom  walls,  did  it  change  and 
become  distorted  with  pain  and  rage,  its  beauty 
marred  and  blotted  out  with  tears. 

That  he  should  ride  coolly  by  and  give  no  sign, 
while  her  heart  ached  as  if  a  knife  were  in  it,  while  she 
drained  to  the  dregs  the  cup  of  lonely  love!  That 
was  bitter.  But  bitterer  still  the  knowledge  that 


Rosanne  Ozanne  215 

within  herself  lay  the  reason  of  their  separation,  as 
well  as  the  power  to  end  it.  She  could  bring  him 
back  this  very  hour  if  she  wished,  was  her  thought. 
Yet,  could  she?  Were  not  those  other  bonds  that 
held  her  soul  in  slavery  stronger  than  herself — 
stronger  (as  he  had  suggested  in  his  letter)  than  her 
love  for  Denis  Harlenden? 

Miserably,  her  face  lifeless  and  pale  as  the  face  of 
one  who  has  lain  among  the  ashes  of  renouncement 
and  repentance,  she  rose  from  the  bed  where  she  had 
flung  herself  weeping,  and  creeping  to  an  old-fashioned 
oak  bureau  of  heavy  make,  sat  down  before  it  and 
began  to  unlock  its  many  drawers  and  take  therefrom 
a  number  of  little  jewel-cases.  One  by  one  she 
opened  these  and  spread  before  her  the  radiant, 
sparkling  things  they  contained  with  their  myriad 
points  of  light  and  dancing  colour.  She  ran  the 
things  through  her  fingers  and  bathed  her  hands  in 
them  like  water.  Then  she  curved  her  palms  into  a 
cup  and  held  them  filled  to  the  brim  with  such  a  spark- 
ling draught  as  only  a  god  could  drink — a  draught 
with  fire  and  ice  in  it,  blood  and  crystal  water,  purity 
and  evil.  The  roses  of  life  and  the  blue  flowers  of 
death  were  all  intermingled  and  reflected  in  that 
magic  draught  of  frozen  fire  and  liquid  crystal.  As 
the  girl  gazed  into  it,  colour  came  back  to  her  pale 
face,  and  her  eyes  caught  and  returned  the  flashing 
beams  of  light.  It  almost  seemed  as  if  she  and  the 
stones,  able  to  communicate,  were  exchanging  the 
signals  of  some  secret  code. 

One  jewel  was  more  beautiful  than  all  the  rest,  the 
lovely,  flexible  chain  of  stones  she  had  been  holding 
to  her  breast  that  night  when  Harlenden  surprised 
her  coming  from  the  garden  into  the  veranda — the 


216  Rosanne  Ozanne 

thing  he  had  shaken  from  her  hand  into  her  lap  as  if 
it  had  been  a  toad.  She  remembered  Harlenden, 
now,  as  she  gazed  into  the  iridescent  shapes  of  light, 
seeming  to  see  in  their  brilliant,  shallow  depths 
worlds  of  romance  that  every-day  life  knew  not  of. 
At  last  she  caught  the  thing  up  and  kissed  it  burn- 
ingly,  then  pressed  it  against  her  heart  as  if  it  pos- 
sessed some  quality  of  spikenard  to  ease  the  pain  she 
still  felt  aching  there.  The  sound  of  the  dinner-gong 
shook  her  from  her  strange  dreams,  and  hastily,  yet 
with  a  sort  of  lingering  regret,  she  began  to  gather  up 
the  jewels  and  lay  them  once  more  into  their  downy 
nests  of  white  velvet.  Her  fingers  caressed  and  her 
eyes  embraced  every  single  stone  as  she  laid  it  away. 

"  I  must  get  some  more,"  she  murmured  feverishly 
to  herself;  "I  must  get  some  more — soon!" 

She  had  forgotten  Denis  Harlenden  now.  Her 
lips  took  on  a  hungry,  arid  line,  and  her  eyes  were 
suddenly  hard  and  more  brilliant  than  the  stones 
she  handled.  The  lust  of  diamonds,  which  is  one 
of  the  greatest  and  most  terrible  of  all  the  lusts,  had 
got  her  in  its  scorpion-claws  and  was  squeezing  love 
from  her  heart  and  beauty  from  her  soul. 

"Rosanne,  your  sister  is  worse,"  her  mother  said, 
at  dinner.  They  had  reached  dessert,  but  these 
were  the  first  words  that  had  passed  between  them. 
Rosanne's  shoulders  moved  with  the  suggestion  of  a 
shrug. 

"1  think  she  gives  way,"  she  remarked  coldly. 
"She  could  shake  off  that  illness  with  the  exercise 
of  a  little  self-control." 

"It  is  easy  to  talk  like  that  when  you  are  not  the 
sufferer,  dear.  You  forget  that  her  whole  heart  is 
wrapped  up  in  Dick.  I  believe  that  if  he  dies,  she 


Rosanne  Ozanne  217 

will — ."  The  mother's  words  ended  in  something 
very  like  a  sob.  She  looked  utterly  worn  out  and 
wretched.  Her  eyes  wistfully  searched  Rosanne's, 
but  the  latter's  mood  appeared  to  be  one  of  complete 
sang-froid. 

"You  always  look  on  the  worst  side  of  things, 
mother,"  she  said  calmly.  "If  Dick  dies,  and  I 
daresay  he  will — cancer  of  the  throat  is  nearly  always 
fatal,  I  believe — Rosalie  will  get  over  it  in  time  and 
marry  some  other  man." 

"Rosanne,  I  never  thought  you  could  be  so  heart- 
less!" 

"Nonsense,  mother;  it  isn't  heartlessness  but  com- 
mon sense,  and  I  think  you  ought  not  to  encourage 
Rosalie  by  being  sympathetic.  A  little  bracing 
brutality  is  what  she  needs  to  pull  her  out  of  her 
misery." 

Mrs.  Ozanne  rose,  her  eyes  shining  with  anger  as 
well  as  tears. 

"  I  forbid  you  to  speak  to  me  of  your  unhappy 
sister  unless  you  can  speak  kindly,"  she  said,  and 
added  harshly?  "I  sometimes  think,  Rosanne,  that 
you  are  either  not  my  child  or  that  that  Malay  woman 
bewitched  and  cast  some  evil  spell  over  you  when 
you  were  a  baby." 

Rosanne  looked  at  her  with  musing  eyes. 

"I  have  sometimes  thought  so  myself,"  she  said 
slowly,  "and  that,  instead  of  you  reproaching  me,  it 
is  I  who  have  the  right  to  reproach  you  for  bartering 
me  away  to  witchcraft  rather  than  letting  me  die 
an  innocent  little  child." 

Sophia  Ozanne's  lips  fell  apart,  and  the  colour 
died  slowly  out  of  her  handsome,  wholesome-looking 
face.  She  said  nothing  while  she  stood  there  gazing 


218  Rosanne  Ozanne 

for  a  long  minute  at  her  daughter;  but  her  breath 
came  laboriously,  and  she  held  her  hand  over  her 
heart  as  if  she  had  received  a  blow  there.  At  last,  in 
silence,  she  walked  heavily  from  the  room. 

Rosanne  helped  herself  daintily  to  fruit  salad,  but 
when  she  had  it  on  her  plate  she  did  nothing  but 
stare  at  it.  After  a  few  moments  she  rang  the  bell 
and  sent  out  a  message  to  the  stables  that  she  would 
require  the  carriage  for  an  hour. 

"And  tell  my  mother,  if  she  asks,  that  1  have  gone 
to  Mrs.  Drummund's, "  she  directed  old  Maria,  as 
she  went  away  to  her  room  to  put  on  a  hat  and  wrap. 

"It  is  pretty  awful  at  home  now,"  she  complained 
to  Kitty  Drummund,  some  twenty  minutes  later. 
"The  whole  house  is  wrapped  in  gloom  because  Dick 
Gardner  has  a  sore  throat.  One  might  as  well  live  in 
a  mausoleum." 

"  Dearest,  it  is  a  little  more  than  a  sore  throat, 
isn't  it?  Len  saw  Tommy  Gardner  today,  and  he 
says  Dick  is  in  awful  pain  and  can't  speak.  They 
are  sending  him  away  to  the  Cape  tonight,  as  a  last 
hope.  Doctor  Raymond,  there,  is  supposed  to  be 
wonderfully  clever  with  affections  of  the  throat, 
though  I  must  say  I  don't  believe  it  will  be  much 
good,  since  Stratton  has  condemned  him." 

"Oh,  talk  about  something  else,  Kit,  for  heaven's 
sake!"  cried  Rosanne,  with  a  sudden  access  of  des- 
perate irritation.  "  1  can't  bear  any  more  Dick 
Gardner." 

Kitty  stroked  the  hair  and  bare  shoulders  of  the 
girl  sitting  on  the  floor  beside  her. 

"  I  know  you're  not  really  heartless,  Nan,  but  you 
do  sound  so  sometimes.  I  expect  all  this  trouble  at 
home  is  on  your  nerves  a  little  bit.  Tell  me,  how  are 


Rosanne  Ozanne  219 

your  own  affairs,  darling?  is  the  engagement  still 
going  on?" 

"No;  the  engagement  is  finished.  I  told  you  I 
never  meant  to  marry  him." 

"I  think  you  are  making  an  awful  mistake,  Nan. 
He's  the  only  man  for  you — the  only  man  who 
can ' 

"Can  what?"  asked  Rosanne,  with  fierce  moodi- 
ness.  "Save  my  soul  alive?" 

"How  strange!  Those  were  the  very  words  I  was 
going  to  use,  though  I  don't  know  why.  They  just 
came  into  my  head/' 

"  Everyone  seems  to  be  hitting  the  right  nail  on 
the  head  tonight,"  commented  Rosanne  dryly. 
"First,  my  mother;  now,  you.  I  wonder  who'll  be 
the  third.  All  good  things  run  in  threes,  don't  they?" 

Kitty  knew  better  than  to  try  to  cope  with  her  in 
that  mood,  so  she  remained  silent  until  Rosanne  rose 
and  caught  up  her  hat. 

"Oh,  don't  go  yet,  darling!  Do  stay  and  see  Len. 
He  had  to  go  out  directly  after  dinner,  but  he  pro- 
mised not  to  be  long.  Fancy!  They're  having  such 
excitement  up  at  the  compound.  But  I  don't  know 
whether  I  ought  to  tell  you,  though,"  she  finished 
doubtfully. 

"Oh,  yes,  do!"  said  Rosanne,  wearily  ironical. 
"  Do  tell  me  something  that  will  make  life  seem  less 
of  an  atrocious  joke  than  it  is — especially  if  you 
oughtn't  to  tell." 

"Well,  we're  not  supposed  to  breathe  anything 
like  this  outside  the  compound  walls,  you  know. 
Len  told  me  not  to  mention  it  to  a  soul;  but  1  don't 
expect  he  meant  to  include  you,  for,  of  course,  you 
are  all  right." 


22O  Rosanne  Ozanne 

"Of  course!"  Rosanne  smiled  mockingly  at  her- 
self in  the  mirror  before  which  she  was  arranging  her 
hair  preparatory  to  posing  her  hat  upon  it. 

"Well,  my  dear,  just  think!  They've  discovered  a 
Kafir  boy  in  the  compound  who  has  been  stealing 
thousands  of  pounds'  worth  of  diamonds  for  months, 
and  passing  them  to  someone  outside.  They  caught 
him  in  the  act  this  afternoon." 

"How  frightfully  exciting!"  Rosanne  had  put  her 
hat  on  now,  but  was  still  manoeuvring  to  get  it  at 
exactly  the  correct  angle  over  her  right  eye.  "  How 
did  he  do  it?" 

"  He  made  a  little  tunnel  from  under  his  sleeping- 
bunk  to  the  outside  of  the  compound  wall,  about  a 
yard  and  a  half  long,  and  through  that  he  would 
push  a  parcel  of  diamonds  by  means  of  a  stick  with  a 
flat  piece  of  tin  at  the  end  of  it,  something  like  a  little 
rake  and  exactly  the  same  length  as  the  tunnel.  He 
always  pushed  a  little  heap  of  earth  through  first,  so 
as  to  cover  the  diamonds  up  from  any  eyes  but  those 
of  his  confederate  outside.  When  the  confederate 
had  removed  the  diamonds,  he  pushed  back  the  earth 
against  the  tin  rake,  which  the  boy  always  left  in 
place  until  he  had  another  packet  of  diamonds  ready 
to  put  through.  In  this  way  the  hole  was  never 
exposed,  except  during  the  few  moments,  once  a  week, 
when  the  boy  was  putting  in  a  fresh  packet." 

"But  how  awfully  thrilling!"  exclaimed  Rosanne. 

"Yes;  isn't  it?  What  they  want  to  do  now  is  to 
catch  the  confederate  who  is,  of  course,  the  real  culprit, 
for  encouraging  an  ignorant  Kafir  to  steal." 

"Who  could  it  possibly  be?" 

"Goodness  knows!  Such  heaps  of  people  come 
inside  this  outer  compound,  tradespeople,  servants 


Rosanne  Ozanne  221 

with  messages,  and  so  on.  But  just  think  of  it,  Nan! 
Thousands  of  pounds'  worth,  and  the  Kafir  boy  only 
got  ten  pounds  for  each  packet  he  pushed  through." 

"Well,  what  would  a  Kafir  do  with  thousands  of 
pounds,  anyway?"  said  Rosanne,  laughing  irrelevantly. 
"  I  think  ten  pounds  was  quite  enough." 

"That's  true — too  much  for  the  wretch,  indeed! 
However,  he  has  confessed  and  told  everything  he 
could  to  help  our  people  to  trap  the  other  wretch. 
Unfortunately,  that  is  not  very  much." 

"No?" 

"No;  he  says  he  has  never  seen  the  man  who 
fetches  the  diamonds.  The  only  one  he  has  ever 
seen  was  a  man  he  is  not  able  to  describe  because  he 
is  so  ordinary-looking,  who  came  to  his  kraal  in 
Basutoland  about  seven  months  ago,  and  made  the 
whole  plan  with  him  to  come  and  work  on  contracts 
of  three  months  at  a  time  as  a  compound-boy,  steal  as 
many  diamonds  as  he  could,  and  pass  them  out  in  the 
way  I  have  described.  Each  parcel  was  to  cost  ten 
pounds  and  to  contain  no  less  than  ten  diamonds. 
No  money  passed  between  them,  but  every  time  a 
parcel  was  put  through  the  tunnel,  the  confederate 
on  the  other  side  put  a  blue  bead  in  its  place  among 
the  sand.  The  boy  found  the  bead  and  kept  it 
as  a  receipt,  and  when  he  came  out  at  the  end  of 
every  three  months'  contract  he  wore  a  bracelet  of 
blue  beads  on  his  wrist.  Naturally,  the  authorities 
didn't  take  any  notice  of  this  when  they  searched 
him,  for  nearly  all  Kafirs  wear  beads  of  some  kind. 
These  beads  were  quite  a  common  kind  to  look  at; 
only  when  they  were  examined  carefully  were  they 
found  to  have  been  passed  through  some  chemical 
process  which  dyed  the  inside  a  peculiar  mauve 


222  Rosanne  Ozanne 

colour,  making  it  impossible  for  the  Kafir  to  cheat  by 
adding  ordinary  blue  beads  (of  which  there  are  plenty 
for  sale  in  the  compound)  to  his  little  bunch  of  're- 
ceipts.'" 

"How  clever!"  said  Rosanne.  "And  how  are  they 
going  to  catch  the  confederate?  Put  a  trap-parcel, 
1  suppose,  and  pounce  on  him  when  he  comes  to  fetch 
it?" 

She  had  seated  herself  again,  opposite  Kitty,  her 
arms  resting  on  the  back  of  the  chair,  her  face  vivid 
with  interest. 

"Cleverer  than  that,"  announced  Kitty.  "They 
are  going  to  put  the  trap  and  watch  who  fetches  it. 
But  they  won't  pounce  on  him;  they  mean  to  follow 
him  up  and  arrest  the  whole  gang." 

"Gang?" 

"  Len  says  there's  sure  to  be  a  gang  of  them,  and 
for  the  sake  of  getting  them  all,  parcel  after  parcel  of 
stones  will  be  put  through  the  tunnel,  if  necessary, 
until  every  one  of  them  is  traced  and  arrested." 

"Rather  risky  for  the  diamonds,  1  should  think!" 

"They'll  only  put  inferior  ones  in.  Besides,  the 
Kafir  boy's  contract  is  up  in  a  week's  time,  and  if  all 
the  gang  aren't  caught  by  then,  they're  going  to  let 
the  boy  go  out  and  meet  his  confederate  to  deliver 
his  beads,  and  then  the  arrest  will  be  made." 

"Surely  the  Kafir  was  able  to  describe  him,  if  he 
had  been  in  the  habit  of  meeting  him  every  three 
months?" 

"  He  says  he  was  a  young  white  boy,  very  thin, 
who  wears  a  mask  and  an  overcoat.  They  have 
met  twice  at  night,  in  an  old  unused  house  in  the 
Malay  compound,  the  other  side  of  Kimberley.  Can 
you  imagine  any  one  running  such  awful  risks  for  the 


Rosanne  Ozanne  223 

sake  of  diamonds,  Nan?  But  Len  says  it  goes  on  all 
the  time — this  illicit  diamond-buying  business — and 
the  company  loses  thousands  of  pounds  every  year 
and  is  hardly  ever  able  to  catch  the  thieves.  They're 
as  clever  as  paint!  They  have  to  be,  for  if  they  are 
caught  it  means  ten  to  twenty  years'  imprisonment 
for  them,  as  they  know.  Mustn't  it  be  awful  to  live 
in  such  a  state  of  risk  and  uncertainty,  never  knowing 
when  you're  going  to  be  found  out,  for,  of  course, 
there  are  plenty  of  detectives  on  the  watch  for  illicit 
buying  all  the  time?" 

"Awful — yes,  but  terribly  exciting,"  Rosanne  said 
musingly.  "  Don't  you  think  so?"  she  added  quickly, 
and  began  to  pull  on  her  gloves. 

"Ah,  don't  go,  yet!"  cried  Kitty.  "Len  will  be 
dreadfully  disappointed  to  find  you  gone." 

"Tell  him  you  told  me  the  story,"  laughed  Ros- 
anne. "That  will  cheer  him  up." 

"I  don't  think  I  shall,"  said  Kitty  soberly.  "I'm 
afraid  he'd  be  av/fully  mad  with  me,  after  all,  even 
though  it  is  only  you  I've  told.  He'll  say  women  can't 
keep  things  to  themselves,  and  that  you're  sure  to  tell 
someone  else,  and  so  the  whole  thing  will  get  about." 

"You  needn't  worry,  dear.  It  will  never  get  about 
through  me,"  said  Rosanne  quietly,  and,  kissing 
Kitty  good-night,  she  went  her  ways. 

As  she  passed  through  the  brightly  lit  outer  com- 
pound, stepping  briskly  toward  the  big  gate,  she  was 
aware  of  more  than  one  lurking  shadow  behind  the 
blue-ground  heaps.  Also,  it  seemed  to  her  that  vari- 
ous guards  were  more  alert  than  usual  in  their  guard- 
houses. But  she  gave  no  faintest  sign  of  observing 
these  things,  greeted  the  guard  at  the  gate  pleasantly, 
and,  passing  out  to  the  street,  stepped  into  the  waiting 


224  Rosanne  Ozanne 

carriage  and  was  driven  home.  It  wanted  a  few 
minutes  to  midnight  when  she  stole  from  the  veranda 
door  of  her  room  once  more,  dressed  in  her  dim, 
straight  gown  of  moonlight  velvet  with  a  swathe  of 
colourless  veil  about  her  head  and,  sliding  softly 
through  the  garden,  went  out  into  the  quiet  streets 
of  the  town  until  she  came,  at  last,  to  a  little  indis- 
tinguished  door  next  to  a  jeweller's  window,  whereon 
was  neatly  incribed  the  name,  "Syke  Ravenal." 
On  knocking  gently  three  times,  the  door  opened 
mechanically  to  admit  her.  Inside  all  was  dark; 
but  a  few  paces  down  a  passage  brought  her  to  a 
door  that  opened  into  a  small  but  brightly  lighted 
room.  An  elderly  man  was  seated  at  a  table  engaged 
in  beautifully  illuminating  a  parchment  manuscript. 
This  was  Syke  Ravenal." 

"You  are  very  late,  my  child,"  he  said,  in  a  gently 
benevolent  tone.  His  voice  was  rich  and  sonorous. 

"  It  was  not  safe  to  come  before." 

"Safe?"  His  dark,  hawk-like  face  did  not  change, 
but  there  was  a  sound  in  his  voice  like  the  clank  of 
broken  iron. 

"They've  caught  Hlangeli,"  she  said. 

"Ah!"  He  carefully  folded  the  manuscript  be- 
tween two  protecting  sheets  of  blotting-paper  and 
placed  it  in  the  drawer  of  his  table.  His  hands  shook 
as  if  with  ague,  but  his  voice  was  as  perfectly  com- 
posed as  his  face  when  he  spoke  again. 

"Tell  me  all  about  it,  my  child." 

"  They  got  him  in  the  compound  today,  as  he  was 
putting  the  parcel  through.  He  has  confessed  as 
much  as  he  knows  about  your  son  going  to  the  kraal, 
and  the  blue  beads,  and  the  old  house  in  the  Malay 
compound  where  he  was  paid.  They  have  now  set  a 


Rosanne  Ozanne  225 

trap-parcel  of  stones  and  are  sitting  in  wait  to  catch 
the  confederate."  She  sank  down  in  a  chair  opposite 
to  him  and  leaned  her  elbows  on  the  table.  "To 
catch  me,"  she  said  slowly. 

He  looked  at  her  keenly.  Her  face  was  deadly 
pale,  but  there  was  no  trace  of  fear  in  it.  Whatever 
Rosanne  Ozanne  may  have  been,  she  was  no  coward. 
Neither  was  the  man  opposite  her. 

"Ah!  They  have  no  inkling,  of  course,  that  it 
was  you  who  met  Hlangeli  and  paid  him?" 

"No;  he  was  not  able  to  tell  them  any  more  than 
that  it  was  a  white  boy."  She  added,  with  the 
ghost  of  a  smile,  "A  thin,  white  boy,  in  a  mask  and 
an  overcoat." 

"Well,  that's  all  right.  They  won't  catch  you, 
and  they  won't  catch  me,  and  Saul  is  safe  in  Amster- 
dam. Luck  is  on  our  side,  as  she  always  is  on  the 
side  of  good  players.  Hlangeli  must  foot  the  bill, 
because  he  played  badly." 

Rosanne  sat  listening.  It  was  plain  that  Hlangeli's 
fate  was  a  matter  of  indifference  to  her,  but-some  storm 
was  brewing  behind  her  smouldering  eyes.  Ravenal 
went  on  calmly: 

"  It's  been  a  good  game  while  it  lasted.  The  pity 
is  that  it  must  come  to  an  end." 

Then  the  storm  broke  forth. 

"But  it  must  not  come  to  an  end!"  she  burst  out 
violently.  "I  can't  live  without  it!" 

The  man  looked  at  her  reflectively. 

"  You're  a  great  sport.  I've  never  known  a  woman 
with  finer  nerve.  But,  just  the  same,  the  game  has 
got  to  come  to  an  end." 

"Game!  You  don't  understand.  It  is  meat  and 
drink  to  me.  I  must  have  diamonds."  She  sounded 


226  Rosanne  Ozanne 

like  a  woman  pleading  for  some  drug  to  deaden  pain, 
memory,  and  conscience.  Her  voice  was  wild;  she 
put  out  her  hands  to  him  in  an  imploring  gesture. 
"I  have  given  up  everything  for  them — everything!" 

He  shook  his  head. 

"We  can't  do  any  more  of  it,"  he  said  inflexibly. 
"Not  for  a  year,  at  the  outside/' 

Her  hands  fell  on  the  table.  She  shivered  as 
though  she  already  felt  cold  and  hunger. 

"Suffer  torment  for  a  year?"  she  muttered.  "It 
is  impossible.  I  can't.  I  have  nothing  else.  I've 
sacrificed  everything  to  it — duty,  friendship,  love!" 
She  leaned  her  head  in  her  hands,  and  Ravenal  did 
not  hear  the  last  words. 

"Pull  yourself  together,  my  child.  It  is  not  like 
you  to  give  way  like  this.  Listen:  Go  home  now 
and  sit  tight.  Nerve  and  a  quiet  going  about  your 
ways  are  what  are  needed  for  the  next  few  weeks. 
Don't  come  near  me  unless  you  have  anything  impor- 
tant to  communicate;  then  come  in  the  ordinary  way 
to  the  shop  with  some  jewel  to  be  mended.  But 
remember:  There  is  no  possible  channel  through 
which  they  can  connect  either  of  us  with  Hlangeli, 
and  nothing  in  the  world  to  fear." 

"It  is  not  fear  I  feel,"  she  said  dully. 

"I  know.  It  is  disappointment.  You  are  broken- 
hearted because  the  black  diamonds  cannot  be 
handed  over  to  you." 

She  did  not  speak,  but  if  ever  a  woman's  face  be- 
trayed hunger  and  passionate  longing,  hers  did  at 
that  moment.  All  her  beauty  was  gone.  There 
was  nothing  but  a  livid  mask  with  two  burning  eyes. 
A  pitying  look  crossed  Ravenal's  face.  He  was  not 
an  unkindly  man. 


Rosanne  Ozanne  227 

"Poor  child,"  he  said  gently,  "it's  hard  on  you!" 
For  a  moment  he  seemed  to  hesitate,  then,  coming 
to  a  swift  decision,  rose  and  went  over  to  a  safe  em- 
bedded in  the  wall,  and  unnoticeable  by  reason  of  a 
piece  of  Oriental  embroidery  pinned  above  it  and  a 
chair  standing  carelessly  before  it.  Unlocking  it,  he 
brought  to  the  table  a  small  jewel-case. 

"I'll  tell  you  what  I'll  do.  I  can't  let  you  have  it 
for  good,  because  it's  not  earned  yet.  Twenty  more 
rough  stones  are  wanted  from  you  before  this  is  yours. 
That  was  the  bargain.  But,  considering  all  the  cir- 
cumstances, I'll  lend  it  to  you  for  a  while." 

Before  he  had  finished  speaking  she  had  seized 
the  case  from  his  hands  and  pressed  it  open.  A 
magnificent  pendant  gleamed  up  at  her  with  all  the 
smoky,  mysterious  beauty  of  black  diamonds. 

"  I  know  I  can  trust  you  with  it,  for  I  have  trusted 
you  with  more  than  that.  My  life  is  in  your  hands, 
just  as  much  as  yours  is  in  mine.  So  keep  the  thing, 
and  finish  paying  for  it  when  you  can.  If  we're 
never  able  to  get  any  more  rough  diamonds  from 
the  mine,  you'll  have  to  pay  in  money." 

She  hardly  seemed  to  hear,  so  wrapped  was  she  in 
the  contemplation  of  her  new  treasure,  brooding  and 
crooning  over  it  like  a  mother  with  a  child.  He 
watched  her  for  a  moment,  then  rose  and  fetched  the 
grey  veil  she  had  cast  off  on  entering. 

"Come  now,  my  child;  it  is  late,  and  you  must  be 
gone.  Be  careful.  I  know  I  need  not  remind  you 
of  the  oath  between  us  three." 

"Silence — and  suicide,  if  necessary,"  she  mur- 
mured mechanically.  She  had  taken  the  jewel  from 
its  case  and  was  threading  it  on  a  chain  round  her 
throat,  "  Death  rather  than  betray  the  other  two." 


228  Rosanne  Ozanne 

"That's  it,"  said  the  other,  with  cheerful  firmness. 
"Now,  good-night." 

He  lowered  the  lights  and  opened  the  door  of  the 
room.  She  passed  into  the  dark  passage,  and  he 
returned  to  the  table  and  pressed  a  button  which 
opened  the  front  door.  When  he  heard  it  softly 
close,  he  knew  that  she  was  out  of  the  house  and  on 
her  way  home. 

But  her  adventures  were  not  yet  over.  Before 
she  had  gone  very  far  she  was  aware  of  being  followed. 
A  mirror  in  a  shop  window  reflected,  afar  off,  the 
silhouette  of  the  only  other  person  besides  herself 
in  the  now  silent  street — a  tall  man  in  a  slouch 
hat.  Apparently  he  had  on  shoes  as  light  as  her 
own,  for  his  feet  made  no  more  noise  than  hers,  though 
her  fine  ear  detected  the  steady  beat  of  them  behind 
her.  For  the  first  time,  she  knew  terror.  Supposing 
it  were  a  detective  who  had  tracked  her  from  Syke 
Ravenal's  door,  and  was  now  waiting  to  arrest  her 
as  she  entered  her  own  home!  She  realized  that  her 
courage  had  lain  in  the  knowledge  of  absolute  security, 
for  now,  at  the  menace  of  discovery,  her  heart  was 
paralyzed  with  fright  and  she  could  scarcely  breathe. 
Instinct  told  her  to  run,  but  acquired  self-control  kept 
her  from  this  madness,  and,  by  a  great  effort,  she 
continued  walking  quietly  as  before.  Gradually  her 
nerve  returned.  She  determined,  by  feint,  to  dis- 
cover whether  the  man  were  really  following  her  or 
if  his  presence  were  due  to  accident.  Having  now 
arrived  at  the  residential  part  of  the  town,  where 
every  house  stood  back  from  the  road  and  was  shel- 
tered by  a  garden,  she  coolly  opened  a  gate  at  random 
and  walked  boldly  in.  The  man  was  still  some  way 
behind,  and  she  had  ample  time  to  pass  through  the 


Rosanne  Ozanne  229 

garden  and  reach  the  veranda  before  he  drew 
near. 

It  was  a  house  strange  to  her,  and  she  had  not  the 
faintest  idea  who  lived  there.  All  the  windows  and 
doors  were  closed  and  shuttered,  but  light  showed 
through  a  fanlight  over  the  hall  door.  The  veranda, 
blinded  by  heavy  green  mats,  contained  the  usual 
array  of  chairs,  and  she  sank  down  on  one,  her  heart 
beating  like  a  drum,  her  ears  strained  to  hear  her 
pursuer  pass.  Instead,  to  her  horror,  she  heard  the 
gate  briskly  unlatched  and  footsteps  on  the  path. 
Terrified  by  this  unexpected  move,  and  sure,  now, 
that  the  end  had  come,  she  sprang  to  her  feet  and 
stood  waiting  like  a  straight,  grey  ghost  for  the  man 
to  enter  the  veranda.  The  light  above  the  hall  door 
fell  full  on  him,  and  it  is  hard  to  say  whether  dismay 
or  horror  were  strongest  in  her  when  she  recognized 
Harlenden. 

"Denis!"  she  stammered. 

"Why  are  you  here,  Rosanne?"  he  asked  quietly. 
"  Do  you  need  me?" 

Astonishment  kept  her  dumb  for  a  moment,  then, 
with  a  realization  of  the  position,  came  anger. 

"How  dare  you  follow  me?"  she  exclaimed,  in  a 
low,  tense  voice. 

"  1  live  in  this  house." 

"  You  live  here?"  she  faltered,  and  sat  down  sud- 
denly, trembling  from  head  to  foot. 

"Yes;  and  I  have  just  returned  from  the  club." 

"Then  it  was  not  you  following  me?" 

At  that  she  sprang  up  and  threw  herself  into  his 
arms  in  a  frenzy  of  fear. 

"Who  was  it,  then?  Oh,  Denis,  Denis,  save  me; 
take  me  into  your  house — hide  me!" 


230  Rosanne  Ozanne 

"Hush!"  he  said  gently,  and,  keeping  a  supporting 
arm  about  her,  guided  her  round  the  veranda,  took 
a  key  out  of  his  pocket,  and  let  her  and  himself  in 
by  a  side  door.  He  closed  and  locked  the  door  behind 
them,  put  her  into  a  chair,  then  examined  the  window 
to  make  sure  it  was  closed  as  well  as  shuttered.  It 
was  a  man's  sitting-room,  full  of  the  scent  of  leather 
and  tobacco.  Going  to  a  spirit-stand  on  the  table 
he  poured  out  some  brandy. 

"Drink  this,"  he  said,  in  the  same  firm  tone  he 
had  used  all  along,  and  mechanically  she  obeyed  him. 

"Where  are  we?"  she  murmured.  "Whose  house 
is  this?  I  thought  you  lived  at  the  club?" 

"So  I  did  until  last  week,  when  this  house  was  lent 
me.  Don't  be  afraid.  The  servants  are  all  in  bed, 
and  there  is  no  one  about.  You  are  much  safer  here 
than  roaming  about  the  streets  at  one  in  the  morning." 

"Then  you  were  following  me?" 

"Certainly  I  was  following  you.  I  saw  you  come 
out  of  Syke  Ravenal's  shop  and  I  walked  behind  you, 
but  only  because  your  way  and  mine  happened  to 
be  in  the  same  direction." 

She  passed  her  hand  over  her  eyes  with  a  hopeless 
gesture.  It  seemed  as  though  this  endless  day  of 
terrors  and  surprises  would  never  be  done,  and  she 
was  weary,  weary.  He  sat  regarding  her  with  grave 
eyes.  She  looked  like  a  little,  tired,  unhappy  child, 
and  his  heart  was  sick  with  longing  to  gather  her  in 
his  arms  and  comfort  her  and  take  her  sorrows  on 
himself.  But  he  knew  that  there  were  things  beyond 
his  help  here,  unless  she  gave  him  her  full  confidence 
and  cast  her  burdens  into  his  hands. 

"Rosanne,"  he  said,  at  last,  "I  ask  you  to  trust 
me." 


Rosanne  Ozanne  231 

She  looked  at  him  with  wretched  eyes  and  a  mouth 
tipped  at  the  corners  as  though  she  would  weep  if  she 
could.  In  truth,  the  enchantment  of  this  man's  love 
and  her  love  for  him  was  on  her  again,  and  the  poig- 
nant torment  of  it  was  almost  too  exquisite  to  bear. 
His  voice  stole  through  her  senses  like  the  music  of 
an  old  dream.  His  lean,  strong  frame,  the  stone-grey 
eyes,  and  close-lipped  mouth  all  spoke  of  that  power 
in  a  man  which  means  safety  to  the  woman  he  loves. 
Safety!  Only  such  a  storm-petrel  as  Rosanne  Oz- 
anne, weary,  with  wings  beaten  and  torn  by  winds 
whose  fateful  forces  she  herself  did  not  understand, 
could  realize  the  full  allure  of  that  word.  She  felt 
like  a  sailor  drowning  in  a  wild  sea,  within  sight  of  the 
fair  land  he  never  would  reach.  That  fair  land  of 
safety  was  not  for  her  feet,  that  had  wandered  down 
such  dark  and  shameful  paths.  But,  oh,  how  the 
birds  sang  on  that  sweet  shore!  How  cool  were  the 
green  pastures!  Small  wonder  that  her  face  wore 
the  tortured  misery  of  a  little  child.  Denis  Harlen- 
den's  heart  turned  to  water  at  the  sight  of  it,  and 
the  blood  thrummed  in  his  veins  with  the  ache  to 
crush  her  to  his  breast  and  keep  her  there  against  the 
world  and  against  herself,  spite  of  all  the  unfathomed 
things  in  her  which  estranged  him.  But  he  was 
strong  enough  to  refrain  from  even  touching  her 
hands.  Only  his  voice  he  could  not  stay  from  its 
caresses. 

"  Is  not  love  enough  for  you,  Rosanne?" 
She  trembled  under  it  like  leaves  in  the  wind  and 
lifted  her  eyes  to  his.  They  looked  long  into  each 
other's  souls  through  those  windows  which  can  wear 
so  many  veils  to  hide  the  truth.  But,  in  that  mo- 
ment, the  veils  were  lifted,  and  both  saw  Truth  in  all 


232  Rosanne  Ozanne 

her  naked  terror  and  beauty.  What  he  saw  scorched 
and  repelled  but  did  not  daunt  him;  instead,  a  nobler 
love,  chivalrous  and  pitiful,  was  born  of  the  sight. 
And  she  saw  that  love,  and  knew  it  great  enough  to 
clothe  her  even  if  she  came  to  him  stripped  of  fair 
repute  and  the  world's  honours. 

"Yes;  it  is  enough,"  she  said  brokenly,  and  cast  a 
thing  she  wore  about  her  neck  to  the  floor.  Then, 
suddenly,  she  collapsed  in  her  chair  and  fell  into  a  fit 
of  dry  weeping.'  Long,  bitter  sobs  shook  her  frame 
and  seemed  to  tear  their  way  out  of  her  body.  She 
was  like  a  woman  wrenched  upon  the  rack.  Harlen- 
den  could  do  nothing  but  stand  and  wait,  his  own 
face  twisted  with  pain,  until  the  storm  was  past. 
Gradually  it  died  away,  with  longer  and  longer 
intervals  between  the  shuddering  sighs.  At  last, 
she  uncovered  her  face,  bleached  and  ravaged 
by  the  tearless  storm,  yet  wearing  a  gentler  beauty 
than  ever  it  had  known,  and  rose  trembling  to  her 
feet. 

"Take  me  home,  Denis,"  she  whispered.  He 
wrapped  her  veil  about  her  and  she  felt  the  thrill  of 
his  hands  upon  her,  but  he  did  not  kiss  her.  They 
had  come  closer  to  each  other  than  any  kiss  could 
bring  them.  Just  as  they  were  passing  from  the 
room,  she  remembered  something  and  stepped  back. 

"I  must  touch  that  vile  thing  again,"  she  said, 
"because  it  does  not  belong  to  me  and  must  go  back 
to  where  it  came  from.  She  stooped  and  picked  the 
black,  glittering  object  from  the  floor. 

A  spasm  contracted  Harlenden's  face,  but  he 
asked  no  question.  Silently  they  went  from  the 
house  and  into  the  dark  streets.  There  was  no  moon. 
At  her  gate,  he  stooped  and  kissed  her  lips. 


Rosanne  Ozanne  233 

Mrs.  Ozanne  got  up  the  morning  of  the  following 
day  with  the  urgent  feeling  on  her  of  something  to 
be  done.  It  seemed  as  if  there  were  some  move 
to  be  made  that  would  help  her  and  her  children  in 
their  unhappiness,  only  she  didn't  know  what  the 
move  was.  But  she  always  remembered,  afterward, 
with  what  feverish  urgency  she  dressed,  putting  on 
walking-things  instead  of  a  wrapper,  and  stepping 
from  her  room  into  the  bustling  atmosphere  of  the 
house  with  a  determined  indifference  to  the  tasks  and 
interests  that  usually  occupied  her  attention. 

Rosalie  was  as  surprised  to  see  her  mother  dressed 
for  going  out  as  was  the  mother  to  find  her  daughter 
at  the  breakfast-table. 

"Why,  Rosalie,  my  darling,  this  is  an  unexpected 


joy 


"Yes,  mother;  I  thought  I  would  make  an  effort." 

It  was  the  first  time  that  the  girl  had  been  out  of 
her  room  for  over  two  weeks,  and  she  looked  frail  as  a 
snowdrop,  and  nearly  as  white. 

"You  can't  have  two  daughters  sick  abed,  you 
know,"  she  added,  with  a  wistful  smile. 

"  Is  Rosanne  still '  Mrs.  Ozanne  often  left 

questions  and  remarks  about  her  other  daughter 
unfinished. 

The  latter  had  spent  the  whole  of  the  previous  day 
in  her  room,  seeming  physically  unable  to  leave  her 
bed. 

"  Yes;  I'm  afraid  she's  really  ill.  She  just  lies  there, 
not  speaking  or  eating,  and  she  looks — oh,  mother, 
she  looks  so  unhappy!" 

"  I  begged  her  yesterday  to  see  the  doctor." 

"She  says  no  doctor  can  do  her  any  good,  and 
that  we  must  just  leave  her  alone.  I  fancy  she's 


234  Rosanne  Ozanne 

thinking  out  something  that  she's  terribly  worried 
about." 

"There  is  something  wrong/'  said  the  mother 
heavily.  "Oh,  Rosalie,  if  she  were  only  like  you, 
and  would  not  hide  her  heart  from  those  who  love 
her!" 

"We  can't  all  be  alike,  mother  darling!  Rosanne 
has  a  stronger  character  for  better  or  worse  than  I 
have.  It  is  easy  for  me  to  throw  my  troubles  on  other 
people's  shoulders,  but  she  is  capable  of  bearing  in 
silence  far  greater  sorrows,  and  of  making  far  greater 
sacrifices." 

"It  is  not  a  happy  nature,"  sighed  her  mother. 
"  I  wonder  if  Kitty  Drummund  can  do  any  good  if  I 
send  for  her?" 

"  Better  not,  mother.  She  says  she  wants  to  see 
no  one  at  present,  and  you  know  she  was  at  Kitty's 
the  night  before  last." 

"  I  have  asked  her  so  often  not  to  go  out  at  night 
like  that — even  to  Kitty's.  I  dare  say  she  caught 
cold  driving." 

"Poor  Rosanne!     It  is  more  than  a  cold  she  has!" 

Sophia  Ozanne  looked  at  her  little,  fair  daughter 
with  tender  eyes,  remembering  the  heartless  way 
Rosanne  had  spoken  of  her  sister's  grief  only  two 
nights  before. 

"How  different  you  are,  my  Rosalie — forgetting 
your  own  sorrow  to  think  of  others!" 

The  girl's  eyes  filled  with  tears,  but  she  did  not  shed 
them. 

"  I'm  afraid  it's  only  another  form  of  selfishness, 
mummie  dear.  I  want  to  be  kind  and  loving  to  all  the 
world,  just  so  that  God  will  be  good  to  me  and  give 
Dick  another  chance." 


Rosanne  Ozanne  235 

"My  poor,  poor  child!"  The  mother's  arms  were 
round  her  in  a  moment,  ready  for  comfort,  but  Rosalie 
pushed  her  gently  away,  smiling  with  quivering  lips. 

"  Don't  pity  me,  mother.  I'm  determined  to  be 
brave,  whatever  comes.  But  tell  me,  where  are  you 
going,  all  prinked  out  in  your  walking-things?" 

"I — I  don't  know  yet,  dear."  Mrs.  Ozanne 
looked  startled  and  embarrassed.  "  I  have  various 
things  to  do." 

"  It's  a  frightful  morning.  Do  you  think  you  ought 
to  go  out?" 

"  I  must,"  was  the  elder  woman's  firm  answer,  and 
she  bustled  away  before  there  was  time  for  further 
questioning.  Not  for  anything  did  she  mean  to  be 
deterred  from  the  pressing  desire  in  her  to  go  out. 
Rosalie  had  been  perfectly  right  about  the  weather. 
It  was  that  arid  time  of  year  when  the  air  swirls  in 
gusts  of  hot  wind,  laden  with  gritty  blue  sand  from 
the  debris-heaps,  and  the  finer  red  dust  of  the  streets. 

Kimberley  dust  is  notoriously  the  worst  of  its 
kind  in  a  land  plagued  with  dust.  Buluwayo  runs  it 
pretty  close,  and  Johannesburg,  in  the  spring  months, 
has  special  sand-devils  of  its  own,  but  nothing  in 
Africa  has  ever  quite  come  up  to  Kimberley  at  its 
worst.  This  was  not  one  of  its  worst,  however; 
merely  a  day  on  which  all  who  had  wisdom  sat  at 
home  within  closed  doors  and  sealed  windows,  awaiting 
a  cessation  of  the  penetrating  abomination  of  filth 

Often,  during  the  morning,  Mrs.  Ozanne  found 
herself  wondering  what  she  was  doing  wandering 
about  the  town  on  such  a  day.  Desultorily,  and 
with  an  odd  feeling  that  this  was  not  what  she  should 
be  about,  she  let  herself  be  blown  along  the  street  and 
in  and  out  of  shops,  face  bent  down,  eyes  half  closed, 


236  Rosanne  Ozanne 

bumping  blindly  into  people,  her  skirts  swirling  and 
flacking,  her  hat  striving  its  utmost  to  escape  and 
take  the  hair  of  her  head  with  it.  There  were  no 
necessary  errands  to  do.  The  servants  did  the 
shopping,  and  she  rarely  went  out  except  to  drive 
in  the  afternoons.  Vaguely  she  wondered  why  she 
had  not  used  the  carriage  this  morning. 

Lunch-time  came,  but  she  could  not  bring  herself 
to  return  home.  It  seemed  to  her  that  there  was 
still  something  she  must  do,  though  she  could  not 
remember  what. 

In  the  end,  she  went  into  a  clean,  respectable  little 
restaurant  and  lunched  off  a  lamb  chop  and  boiled 
potatoes,  regardless  of  the  excellent  lunch  that  awaited 
her  at  home.  Then,  like  a  restless  and  unclean  spirit, 
out  she  blew  once  more  into  the  howling  maelstrom  of 
wind  and  dust. 

She  began  to  feel,  at  last,  as  if  it  were  a  nightmare, 
this  necessity  that  urged  her  on,  she  knew  not  whither. 
Dimly,  her  eyes  still  blinded  by  dust,  she  was  aware 
that  she  had  left  the  main  thoroughfares  and  was 
now  in  a  poorer  part  of  the  town.  With  the  gait  of  a 
sleep-walker,  she  continued  on  her  way,  until  sud- 
denly a  voice  addressing  her  jerked  her  broad-awake. 

"You  come  see  me,  missis?" 

A  woman  had  opened  the  door  of  a  mean  tin  nouse 
and  stood  there  waiting  in  the  doorway,  almost  as  if 
she  had  been  expecting  Sophia  Ozanne.  The  latter 
stood  stone-still,  but  her  mind  went  racing  back  to  a 
winter  afternoon  seventeen  years  before,  when  she 
had  sat  in  her  bedroom  with  the  little  dying  form  of 
Rosanne  upon  her  knees,  and  a  voice  speaking  from 
the  shadow  of  her  bedroom  had  said,  "Missis  sell 
baby  to  me  for  a  farthing;  baby  not  die."  The  same 


Rosanne  Ozanne  237 

voice  addressed  her  now,  and  the  same  woman  stood 
in  the  doorway  of  the  mean  house  gazing  at  her  with 
large,  mournful  eyes.  It  was  Rachel  Bangat,  the 
Malay  cook. 

"You  come  see  me  die,  missis?"  she  questioned,  in 
her  soft,  languorous  voice. 

"Die!    Are  you  sick,  Rachel?"  said  Mrs.  Ozanne. 

"Yes,  missis;  Rachel  very  sick.  Going  die  in  three 
days." 

Sophia  Ozanne  searched  the  dark,  high-boned  face 
with  horror-stricken  eyes,  but  could  see  no  sign  of 
death  on  it,  or  any  great  change  after  seventeen 
years,  except  a  more  unearthly  mournfulness  in  the 
mysterious  eyes. 

But  she  had  often  heard  it  said  that  Malays  possess 
a  prophetic  knowledge  of  the  hour  and  place  of  their 
death,  and  she  could  well  credit  Rachel  Bangat  with 
this  strange  faculty. 

"How  my  baby  getting  along,  missis?" 

Such  yearning  tenderness  was  in  the  question  that 
Mrs.  Ozanne,  spite  of  a  deep  repugnance  to  discuss 
Rosanne  with  this  woman,  found  herself  answering: 

"  She  is  grown  up  now,  Rachel." 

"She  very  pretty?" 

"  Yes." 

"And  very  rich?" 

"We  are  well-off." 

"But  she?  I  give  her  two  good  gifts  that  make 
her  rich  all  by  herself.  She  no  use  them?" 

"What  gifts  were  those,  Rachel?"  The  mother 
drew  nearer  and  peered  with  haggard  eyes  at  the 
Malay. 

"I  tell  you,  missis.  Because  I  love  my  baby  so 
much  and  want  her  be  very  rich  and  happy,  I  give  her 


238  Rosanne  Ozanne 

two  good  things — the  gift  of  bright  stones  and  the  gift 
of  late  well." 

Sophia  Ozanne  drew  nearer  still,  staring  like  a 
fascinated  rabbit  into  the  mournfully  sinister  dark 
eyes,  while  the  soft  voice  rippled  on. 

"  She  no  use  those  gifts  I  give  her?  I  think  so.  I 
think  she  say, '  I  hate  that  man/  and  he  die,  sometimes 
quick,  sometimes  slow.  Or  she  not  hate  too  much, 
and  he  only  get  little  sick.  Or  she  wish  him  bad  in 
his  business,  and  he  get  bad.  That  not  so?" 

Sophia  Ozanne  thought  of  the  black  list  she  had 
kept  for  years  of  all  the  people  whom  Rosanne  dis- 
liked and  who  had  come  to  ill.  In  swift  procession 
they  passed  through  her  mind,  and  Dick  Gardner, 
with  his  anguished  throat,  walked  at  the  end  of  the 
procession." 

"Yes."  Her  dry  lips  ejected  the  word  in  spite  of 
her  wish  to  be  silent. 

"Ah!"  said  the  Malay,  softly  satisfied.  "And  the 
bright  stones?  She  not  get  all  she  want  without 
buy?" 

This  time,  Mrs.  Ozanne  did  not  answer;  only  her 
blanched  face  grew  a  shade  whiter.  The  woman 
leaned  forward  and  spoke  to  her  earnestly,  implor- 
ingly. 

"You  tell  her  get  rich  quick  with  the  bright  stones 
before  too  late.  Her  power  going  soon.  Rachel  die 
in  three  days,  and  then  gifts  go  away  from  Rachel's 
baby.  No  more  power  hate  or  get  bright  stones. 
Tell  her  quick,  missis.  I  make  you  come  here  today 
so  you  can  go  back  tell  her.  All  night  and  all  morning 
I  stand  here  make  you  come  to  me.  Now,  go  back 
quick,  tell  my  baby.  Three  days!  Eight  o'clock 
on  third  night,  Rachel  die." 


Rosanne  Ozanne  239 

As  strangely  as  she  had  appeared,  the  Malay  with- 
drew into  her  wretched  shanty  and  closed  the  door. 

Sophia  Ozanne  never  knew  by  what  means  and 
in  what  manner  she  reached  her  home  that  day, 
but  at  about  five  o'clock  she  came  into  the  hall  "of 
Tiptree  House,  and  was  met  by  her  daughter  Rosalie 
with  the  news  that  Rosanne  had  got  up  from  her  bed 
and  left  the  house,  taking  a  suitcase  with  her. 

"And,  oh,  mother,  I  could  see  that  she  was  in  a  high 
fever,  her  cheeks  were  so  flushed  and  her  eyes  like 
fire!  What  shall  we  do?" 

Her  mother  sat  down  and  wiped  great  beads  of 
moisture  from  her  pallid  face. 

"  I  think  we  will  pray,  Rosalie,"  she  said  slowly. 

It  was  still  broad  afternoon  when  Rosanne  walked 
openly  into  Syke  Ravenal's  shop,  bag  in  hand.  The 
benevolent-faced  old  man,  occupied  in  cleaning  the 
works  of  a  watch,  looked  up  with  the  bland  inquiring 
glance  of  a  tradesman  to  a  customer.  But  his  face 
changed  when  he  saw  her  eyes. 

"You  have  news?"  he  asked,  in  a  low  tone. 

"Take  me  to  the  inner  room,"  she  ordered  curtly. 
Without  demur,  he  led  the  way.  The  moment  the 
door  closed  on  them  she  flung  the  heavy  leather  bag 
on  to  the  table. 

"Take  them,"  she  cried  wildly;  "take  them  back! 
They  are  all  there.  Not  one  is  missing." 

"Hush,  my  child — hush!"  he  gently  urged.  But 
she  would  not  be  hushed. 

"  I  hate  you, "  she  said  passionately.  "  I  curse 
the  day  I  entered  this  shop,  an  innocent  girl,  and  was 
beguiled  by  you  and  your  son  and  my  mad  passion 
for  diamonds  into  becoming  your  tool  and  accomplice. 


240  Rosanne  Ozanne 

Oh,  how  I  hate  you!  I  can  never  betray  you  because 
of  my  oath,  but  I  curse  you  both,  and  I  pray  I  may 
never  see  or  hear  of  you  again." 

"That's  all  right,  my  child,"  he  said  soothingly. 
She  threw  him  one  glance  of  loathing  and  contempt 
and  walked  from  the  place. 

Rosanne  had  taken  to  her  bed  again,  and  this 
time  when  they  brought  the  doctor  she  was  too  ill  to 
object,  too  ill  to  do  anything  but  lie  staring  in  a  sort 
of  mental  and  physical  coma  at  the  ceiling  above 
her. 

"  Let  her  be, "  said  the  old-fashioned  family  doctor, 
who  had  known  her  from  babyhood.  "She  has  a 
splendid  constitution  and  will  pull  through.  But 
let  her  have  no  worries  of  any  kind." 

So  they  left  her  alone,  except  in  the  matter  of 
ministering  occasional  nourishment,  which  she  took 
with  the  mechanical  obedience  of  a  child. 

For  two  days  Rosanne  lay  there,  silent  and  strange. 
The  third  day  her  sickness  took  an  acute  form.  She 
tossed  and  moaned  and  called  out  in  her  pain,  her  face 
twisted  with  torture.  Her  mind  appeared  to  remain 
clear. 

"Mother,  I  believe  I  am  dying,"  she  said,  after 
one  such  spell,  during  the  afternoon.  "I  feel  as 
if  something  is  tearing  itself  loose  from  my  very 
being.  Does  it  hurt  like  this  when  the  soul  is  try- 
ing to  escape  from  the  body?" 

"  I  have  sent  for  the  doctor  again,  darling." 

"It  is  nothing  he  can  cure.  It  is  here,  and  here  that 
I  suffer."  She  touched  her  head  and  her  heart. 
"But,  oh,  my  body,  too,  is  tortured!" 

She  lay  still  a  little  while,  moaning  softly  to  herself 


Rosanne  Ozanne  241 

while  her  mother  stood  by,  sick  with  distress;  then 
she  said : 

"Send  for  Denis  Harlenden,  mother.  I  must  see 
him  before  I  die." 

Mrs.  Ozanne  asked  no  question.  Her  woman's 
instinct  told  her  much  that  Rosanne  had  left  unsaid. 
Within  half  an  hour,  Harlenden  was  being  shown 
into  the  drawing-room,  where  she  awaited  him.  He 
came  in  with  no  sign  upon  his  face  of  the  anxiety  in 
his  heart.  This  was  the  fourth  day  since  he  had 
seen  Rosanne,  and  she  had  sent  him  no  word. 

"Sir  Denis,  my  daughter  is  very  ill.  I  don't  know 

why  she  should  be  calling  out  for  you "  She 

faltered.  Marks  of  the  last  few  days'  anxiety  were 
writ  large  upon  her,  but  she  was  not  wanting  in  a 
certain  patient  dignity. 

Harlenden  strode  over  and  took  her  hands  in  his 
as  he  would  have  taken  the  hands  of  his  own 
mother. 

"It  is  because  we  love  each  other,"  he  said  gently, 
"and  because,  as  soon  as  she  will  let  me,  I  am  going 
to  marry  her." 

A  ray  of  thankfulness  shone  across  her  features. 

"Marriage!  I  don't  know,  Sir  Denis;  but,  if  you 
love  her  I  can  tell  you  something  that  will  help  you 
to  understand  her  better,  and  perhaps  you  can  help 
her." 

Briefly,  and  in  broken  words,  she  related  to  him 
the  strange  incident  of  Rosanne's  babyhood,  its 
seeming  effect  upon  her  character,  and  the  Malay's 
extraordinary  words  of  two  days  before.  She  did 
not*disguise  from  him  that  she  believed  Rosanne 
guilty,  whether  consciously  or  unconsciously,  of  many 
dark  things,  but  she  pleaded  for  her  child  the  cer- 

16 


242  Rosanne  Ozanne 

tainty  that  she  had  been  in  the  clutches  of  forces 
stronger  than  herself. 

"About  the  diamonds,"  she  finished,  at  last,  "I 
know  nothing,  and  I  am  afraid  to  think.  Did  you 
read  of  that  awful  case  of  suicide  in  yesterday's  paper 
— that  man,  Syke  Ravenal,  who  has  been  robbing  De 
Beers?  1  am  tormented  with  the  thought  that  she 
may  have  known  something  of  him — yet  how  could 
she?" 

"  You  must  put  such  a  thought  out  of  your  mind  for 
ever  and  never  mention  it  to  a  soul,"  said  Harlenden 
firmly.  "That  man  committed  suicide  because  his 
only  son  had  been  killed  by  accident  in  Amsterdam. 
He  left  a  vast  fortune  and  a  number  of  jewels  which 
had  been  taken  from  their  settings  to  De  Beers,  by 
way  of  conscience-money  for  several  thousand  pounds' 
worth  of  diamonds  in  the  rough  which  he  had  stolen 
from  them.  There  is  absolutely  no  evidence  to  con- 
nect any  other  person  with  his  crime,  except  a  letter 
asking  the  company  to  deal  lightly  with  a  native  boy 
called  Hlangeli,  who  had  been  a  tool  of  his." 

"Then  you  think  it  could  have  nothing  possibly 
to  do  with  my  poor  child?" 

"Certainly  not,"  said  Denis  Harlenden,  without 
flinching. 

"Not  that  I  think  that  she  would  have  done  it  in 
her  right  senses,  but,  oh,  Sir  Denis,  she  has  been  under 
a  spell  all  her  life,  an  evil  spell,  which,  please  God,  will 
be  broken  when  that  woman  dies!  You  do  not  think 
me  mad,  I  hope?" 

"  I  do  not,"  he  answered  gravely.  "I  am  as  sure 
of  what  you  say  as  you  yourself.  What  you  do  not 
know,  Mrs.  Ozanne,  is  that  love  has  already  broken 
that  spell.  Rosanne  is  already  free  from  it." 


Rosanne  Ozanne  243 

She  looked  at  him  questioningly,  longingly. 

"I  cannot  tell  you  more,"  he  said  gently.  "But, 
believe  me,  it  is  true.  May  I  go  to  her  now?" 

The  mother  led  the  way.  Rosanne,  who  had  just 
passed  through  another  terrible  crisis  of  anguish,  lay 
on  her  bed,  still  and  white  as  a  lily.  A  crimson-silk 
wrapper  swathed  about  her  shoulders,  and  the  clouds 
of  night-black  hair,  flung  in  a  tangled  mass  above  her 
pillows,  threw  into  violent  contrast  the  deadly  pallor 
of  her  face.  Her  eyes,  dark  and  wide  with  suffering, 
looked  unseeingly  at  Harlenden  at  first,  but  gradually 
a  ray  of  recognition  dawned  in  them  and  she  put  out 
her  hand  with  a  faint  cry. 

"Denis!" 

He  took  her  hand  and  held  it  safe,  while,  with  all 
the  strength  in  him,  he  willed  peace  and  calmness  into 
her  troubled  mind. 

"  Denis,  I  think  I  am  going  to  die." 

"  Dearest,  I  know  you  are  going  to  live — for  me." 

"No,  no;  I  am  not  worthy  of  life — or  of  you.  I 
have  been  too  wicked!" 

"  I  want  you  to  rest  now,"  he  said. 

"  I  cannot  rest  till  1  have  told  you  everything.  I 
wanted  to  tell  you  the  other  night,  you  know,  but  I 
was  too  exhausted.  Denis,  I  am  a  criminal — a 
thief!  I  have  stolen  diamonds  under  cover  of  the 
friendship  of  another  woman.  I  have  received  them 
from  another  thief  in  the  mines,  and  taken  them  to  a 
man,  whose  son,  a  merchant  in  Amsterdam,  sent  me 
my  share  of  the  robbery  in  cut  stones  set  as  jewels. 
The  rough  stolen  stones  meant  nothing  to  me,  but  the 
finished  ones  dazzled  and  maddened  me.  I  cannot 
describe  to  you  what  they  did  to  my  senses,  but  I  was 
mad  at  the  sight  and  touch  of  them.  They  had  power 


244  Rosanne  Ozanne 

to  benumb  every  decent  feeling  in  me.  For  them,  I 
forgot  duty.  My  poor  mother,  how  she  has  suffered ! 
I  betrayed  friendship;  I  debased  love!  Yes,  Denis, 
I  debased  our  love!  I  meant  just  to  take  the  joy  of 
it  for  a  little  while,  then  cast  it  away  when  it  came  to 
choosing  between  you  and  the  stones." 

"But  you  did  not." 

"No,  thank  God,  I  could  not!  It  was  stronger 
than  my  base  passion,  stronger  than  myself.  Oh, 
Denis,  I  thank  you  for  your  love!  It  has  saved  me 
from  a  hell  in  life,  and  a  hell  hereafter,  for  I  think 
God  will  not  further  punish  one  so  deeply  repentant 
as  I." 

"You  are  not  going  to  die,  Rosanne,"  he  repeated 
firmly. 

"  Do  you  think  I  would  live  and  let  you  link  your 
clean,  upright  life  with  my  dark  one?"  she  said  sadly. 
"You  do  not  even  know  all  the  darkness  of  it  yet. 
Listen:  I  found  I  had  a  power  through  which  I 
could  hurt  others  by  just  wishing  them  ill — and  I 
used  it  freely.  Ah,  I  have  hurt  many  people!  It 
tortures  me  to  think  of  how  many.  I  have  been 
lying  here  for  two  days  and  nights  trying  to  undo  all 
the  harm  I  have  done,  Denis — willing  against  the 
evil  I  have  wished  for,  praying  for  happiness  to  be 
given  back  to  every  one  of  them."  Her  voice  grew 
faint  and  far-off.  "  I  have  even  tried  to  undo  the 
harm  I  wished  would  come  to  the  two  people  who 
tempted  me  into  stealing,  Denis.  But,  somehow,  I 
feel  that  it  is  too  late  for  them.  That  something 
in  here" — she  touched  her  heart — "which  hurts  me 
so  much,  tells  me  I  cannot  help  those  two  wretched 
ones." 

Her  voice  broke  off;     she  was  shaken  like  a  reed 


Rosanne  Ozanne  245 

with  a  terrible  spasm  of  suffering.  It  was  as  though 
she  were  in  the  clutches  of  some  brutal  giant. 

"Denis,"  she  cried  faintly,  "I  feel  I  am  being  rent 
asunder!  Part  of  me  is  being  torn  away.  Surely, 
even  death  cannot  be  so  terrible!" 

A  clock  on  the  table  struck  eight.  Instantly  she 
raised  herself  in  bed,  fell  back  again,  gave  a  deep 
sigh,  and  lay  still. 

A  few  hours  later,  she  woke  with  a  gentle  flush 
in  her  cheeks  and  a  wonderful  harmony  in  all  her 
features.  Her  first  glance  fell  upon  her  mother  lean- 
ing over  the  foot  of  the  bed,  and  she  gave  a  happy 
smile. 

"Oh,  mother,  I  have  had  such  a  lovely  dream!  I 
dreamed  Dick  was  well  and  coming  back  soon  to 
Rosalie." 

"And  so  he  is,  my  darling.  She  has  had  a  wire  to 
say  that  Doctor  Raymond  has  discovered  that  the 
throat  trouble  is  not  malignant  but  quite  curable. 
He  will  be  well  in  a  few  weeks." 

"Then  it  may  come  true,  my  dream,"  she  said 
softly  and  shyly.  "My  dream  that  she  and  I  were 
being  married  on  the  same  day,  she  to  Dick,  and  I  to — 
oh,  Denis,  how  strange  that  you  should  be  here 
when  I  was  dreaming  of  you!  What  brought  you 
here?  Have  you  come  to  tell  mother  that  we  love 
each  other?" 

They  began  to  realize  dimly  then,  as  they  realized 
fully  later  on,  that,  by  a  merciful  gift  of  Providence 
her  mind  was  a  blank  concerning  all  the  dark  things 
of  the  past. 

Memory  of  them  had  died  with  the  dying  of  the 
Malay  woman  at  eight  o'clock  on  a  summer  evening, 


246  Rosanne  Ozanne 

and  no  shadow  of  them  ever  came  back  to  dim  the 
harmony  of  her  life  with  Denis  Harlenden. 

She  is  one  of  the  happiest  as  well  as  one  of  the 
loveliest  women  in  London  today.  Wrapped  up  in 
her  home  life  and  children,  she  still  finds  time  to  be 
seen  about  everywhere  with  her  husband,  and  they 
are  looked  upon  as  one  of  the  few  ideally  happy 
couples  in  society. 

It  has  often  been  remarked,  as  a  curious  fact,  that 
she  never  wears  jewels  of  any  kind,  save  an  emerald 
ring  and  some  exquisite  pearls. 


April  Folly 


PART  I 

WATERLOO  STATION,  greasy  underfoot  and  full  of  the 
murky,  greenish  gloom  of  a  November  day,  was  the 
scene  of  a  jostling  crowd.  The  mail-boat  train  for 
South  Africa  stretched  far  down  the  long  platform, 
every  carriage  door  blocked  by  people  bidding  farewell, 
handing  in  bouquets  of  flowers,  parcels  of  books,  boxes 
of  chocolates;  bartering  jests  and  scattering  laughter; 
sending  their  love  to  the  veld,  to  Table  Mountain,  to 
Rhodesia,  to  the  Victoria  Falls. 

Only  one  first-class  reserved  compartment  had  no 
crowd  before  it,  nor  any  further  audience  than  a 
middle-aged  woman,  with  a  wistful  Irish  face  and  the 
neat  and  careful  appearance  peculiar  to  superior 
servants  of  the  old-fashioned  type.  With  her  hands 
full  of  newly-purchased  books  and  magazines  and  her 
eyes  full  of  trouble,  she  stood  gazing  at  the  sole  occu- 
pant of  the  carriage. 

"Oh,  Miss  Diana  your  Ladyship.  ..."  she  began 
once  more. 

"Shut  it,  Marney,"  said  Miss  Diana  her  Ladyship, 
elegantly.  "  I've  had  enough.  You're  not  coming 
with  me,  and  that's  that.  I'm  not  a  child  any  longer 
never  to  stir  about  the  world  alone." 

247 


248  April  Folly 

"Shure,  and  your  aunt,  Lady  Grizel,  will  turn  in 
her  grave  at  it, "  keened  poor  Marney.  An  expression 
of  scampish  glee  crossed  the  girl's  face. 

"Yes,  old  Grizzly  will  do  some  turning,"  she 
murmured.  "Thank  goodness  that's  all  she  can  do 
now." 

The  maid  crossed  herself  with  a  shocked  air,  though 
it  was  far  from  being  the  first  time  she  had  heard 
those  profanities  of  the  dead  upon  her  mistress's  lips. 
The  latter  gave  her  no  time  for  further  argument. 

"What's  the  use  of  standing  there  stuffing  up  my 
view?"  she  demanded  crossly.  "If  you  want  some- 
thing to  do,  go  and  get  me  some  flowers.  Every- 
one has  flowers  but  me.  It's  outrageous.  Get 
heaps." 

Marney  flurried  down  the  platform,  bent  on  her 
errand,  and  Diana  Vernilands  immediately  issued 
from  the  doorstep  of  the  carriage  and  gazed  eagerly 
and  invitingly  at  the  crowd. 

Ordinarily  the  beauty  alone  of  the  sables  which 
muffled  her  ears  and  fell  to  her  heels  would  have 
focused  attention,  not  to  mention  the  eager  liveliness 
of  her  face.  But  on  this  occasion  no  one  returned  her 
vivid  glances.  Everyone  was  busy  with  their  own 
affairs  and  friends.  The  only  person  seeming  as 
isolated  and  lonely  as  herself  was  another  girl,  who, 
having  made  a  tour  from  one  end  of  the  train  to  the 
other  in  vain  quest  of  a  seat,  was  now  wearily  and 
furiously  doing  the  return  trip.  No  porter  followed 
her;  she  carried  her  own  dressing-case  and  rugs,  and 
she,  too,  was  without  flowers.  This  last  fact  clenched 
Lady  Diana's  decision.  A  bond  of  loneliness  and 
flowerlessness  existed  between  them.  She  hailed  the 
other  girl  deliriously. 


April  Folly  249 

"FT!  Are  you  looking  for  a  place?"  she  cried. 
"Come  in  here.  I've  got  a  carriage  to  myself." 

The  other  was  as  astonished  as  relieved. 

"Oh,  may  I?  How  awfully  good  of  you!"  she  said 
warmly,  and  stepping  into  the  carriage,  bestowed  her 
possessions  in  such  small  space  as  was  not  already 
encumbered.  Then  she  looked  at  Lady  Diana  in  the 
doorway  with  a  pair  of  lovely  but  rather  sad  violet 
eyes  that  had  smoky  shadows  beneath  them. 

"  I  shall  have  to  fight  about  my  ticket  with  the 
ticket  collector  when  he  comes  round.  It  is  only  a 
second-class  one.  I  hope  you  don't  mind?" 

"  Mind!"  said  Diana.  "  I  hate  everyone  in  author- 
ity, and  1  love  rows  and  cocktails  and  excitement. 
Still,  it  might  save  time  to  pay." 

'It  might,"  said  the  other,  "but  I'm  not  going  to. 
There  were  no  second-class  seats  left,  so  the  onus  is 
on  them.  Besides" — her  creamy  face  flushed  faintly 
and  her  eyes  became  defiant — "  I  can't  afford  it." 

Diana  could  very  well  believe  it,  for  she  had  seldom 
seen  a  girl  so  badly  dressed.  However,  the  deep  blue 
eyes  that  had  all  sorts  of  pansy  tints  lying  dormant  in 
them,  and  the  winging  black  satin  hair  that  looked  as 
if  smoke  had  been  blown  through  it,  could  not  be 
obscured  even  by  a  shabby  hat.  Diana's  own  hair 
being  a  violent  apricot  and  her  eyes  of  the  same 
colour  as  a  glass  of  sherry  with  the  sun  on  it,  she  could 
admire  without  pain  this  type  so  different  to  her  own. 

The  fact  was  that  they  were  as  striking  a  pair  of 
girls  as  any  one  could  hope  to  meet  in  a  day's  march, 
but  the  delicate  beauty  of  one  was  under  a  cloud 
which  only  a  connoisseur's  eye  could  see  through — 
badly-cut  garments  and  an  unfashionable  hat!  On 
the  other  hand,  Lady  Diana's  highly-coloured  and 


250  April  Folly 

slightly  dairymaidish  prettiness  would  have  been 
more  attractive  in  simpler  and  less  costly  clothes. 
While  they  were  coming  to  these  conclusions  about 
each  other  an  inspector  of  tickets  entered  the  carriage. 
Diana  delightedly  braced  herself  for  a  row,  but  there 
was  no  need  for  it.  Whether  it  was  the  charm  of  the 
strange  girl's  golden  voice,  or  the  subtle  air  of  luxury 
and  independence  combined  with  a  faint  odour  of 
Russian  leather  and  honey  that  stole  from  the  furs 
of  Lady  Diana  Vernilands,  none  can  tell,  but  the 
inspector  behaved  like  a  man  under  the  influence  of 
hypnotism.  He  listened  to  the  tale  of  the  second- 
class  ticket  as  to  words  of  Holy  Writ,  and  departed 
like  a  man  in  a  dream  without  having  uttered  a  single 
protest,  and  at  Lady  Diana's  behest,  carefully  locking 
the  door  behind  him.  A  moment  later  whistles, 
shouts,  and  the  clicking  of  hundreds  of  farewell  kisses 
signalled  the  train's  immediate  departure.  The 
devoted  Marney,  carrying  what  appeared  to  be  a 
bridal  bouquet  of  white  lilies  and  roses,  dashed  up 
just  in  time  to  make  a  last  attempt  to  accompany 
her  mistress.  But  the  door  was  unyielding,  and  the 
worst  she  could  do  was  to  claw  at  the  window  as  she 
panted  alongside  the  now  moving  train,  crying: 

"You'd  better  let  me  come  with  you,  now,  Miss 
Diana  your  Ladyship.  .  .  ." 

The  latter  only  waved  her  hand  in  kind  but  firm 
dismissal. 

"  Go  home  and  look  after  papa,  Marney,  and  don't 
worry  about  me.  I  shall  be  back  soon."  As  the 
train  took  a  jump  and  finally  fled  from  the  station, 
leaving  Marney  far  behind,  she  added  thoughtfully, 
"  I  don't  think!"  and  burst  out  laughing. 

"Just  as  though  I  woud  hurry  back  to  frowsy  old 


April  Folly  251 

England  the  first  time  I've  ever  managed  to  get  away 
from  it  on  my  own!" 

The  other  girl  looked  at  her  with  deep,  reflective 
eyes. 

"  If  you  had  been  on  your  own  as  much  as  I  have 
you  wouldn't  think  it  such  a  catch,"  she  remarked, 
with  a  little  dry  smile. 

"Oh,  wouldn't  I!  I  can't  imagine  anything  more 
heavenly  than  having  no  relations  in  the  world.  It 
must  be  perfect  paradise!" 

"It's  the  paradise  I  have  lived  in  for  three  years," 
said  April  Poole  sombrely,  "  and  any  one  who  likes  it 
can  have  it,  and  give  me  their  hell  instead." 

"What!"  cried  Diana  Vernilands,  not  sympathetic, 
but  astounded  and  eager.  She  stared  at  the  other 
with  envious,  avid  eyes  that  filled  and  brightened  at 
last  with  an  amazing  plan.  It  burst  from  her  like  a 
shell  from  a  gun.  "Let's  change  places:  I  be  you, 
and  you  be  me!" 

April  considered  her,  and  being  very  weary  of  her 
own  destiny,  considered  the  plan  also.  But  though 
she  was  as  ardent  as  any  one  for  flyaway  schemes  and 
fantastic  adventure,  this  plan  looked  to  her  too 
Arabian-nightish  altogether,  and  not  likely  to  hold 
water  for  more  than  the  length  of  the  journey  from 
Waterloo  to  Southampton. 

"How  can  we?  I  am  a  poverty-stricken  girl, 
going  out  to  governess  at  the  Cape.  You,  a  peer's 
daughter,  I  suppose,  who  will  be  met  on  the  boat  and 
surrounded  by  every  care  and  attention.  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  surrounded!"  Diana  interrupted  savagely. 
With  sudden  fury  she  tore  off  the  little  sable  hat, 
flung  it  on  the  seat  beside  her  and  stabbed  it  viciously 
with  a  great  pearl  pin.  "  I'm  sick  of  being  surrounded! 


252  April  Folly 

I  wish  to  goodness  I  were  Alexander  Selkirk,  ship- 
wrecked on  a  desert  island." 

"That  wouldn't  be  much  fun,  either,"  said  April. 
"  I  don't  think  there  is  much  fun  anywhere.  We  have 
all  got  what  we  don't  want,  and  want  what  we  can't 
get." 

"You  couldn't  not  want  a  face  like  yours,"  said 
Diana,  handsomely.  It  gave  her  no  pain,  as  has  been 
mentioned  before,  because  April  was  dark.  If  she 
had  been  addressing  a  blonde  like  herself,  wild  cats 
could  not  have  torn  such  a  compliment  from  Diana 
Vernilands. 

"  Couldn't  I  ?  Good  looks  without  the  surroundings 
and  clothes  to  put  them  in  are  not  much  of  a  gift. 
Beauty  in  a  third-class  carriage  and  shabby  clothes 
looks  cheap  and  is  fair  game  for  any  one's  stalking." 

"Well,  change  with  me,  then,"  urged  Diana.  "I'd 
rather  be  stalked  than  gazed  at  from  afar  like  a  brazen 
image." 

She  gave  her  hat  another  stab.  April  quivered  all 
over,  like  a  mother  who  sees  a  child  ill-treated. 

"Don't  do  that,"  she  cried  at  last,  in  a  poignant 
voice.  She  had  seen  that  hat  in  her  dreams  for  years, 
but  never  got  so  near  it  before.  Diana  Vernilands 
looked  at  her  thoughtfully,  then  held  it  out. 

"Put  it  on,"  she  entreated.  "Wear  it,  and  be 
surrounded  instead  of  me.  Oh,  for  Heaven's  sake  do! 
I  see  you  are  just  as  keen  as  I  am,  and  just  as  sick  of 
being  who  you  are.  Try  it  on." 

She  may  have  meant  the  hat,  or  she  may  have  meant 
the  plan.  April  accepted  the  hat,  and  with  it  the 
plan.  From  the  moment  she  saw  herself  in  the  glass 
her  doom  was  dight.  There  was  a  little  star-like 
purple  flower,  such  as  never  grew  on  land  or  sea, 


April  Folly  253 

nestling  in  the  golden  darkness  of  the  fur.  It  seemed 
to  April  a  flower  that  might  have  been  plucked  from 
the  slopes  of  the  blue  hills  of  Nirvana,  or  found  float- 
ing on  the  still  waters  of  Lethe  in  that  land  where  it  is 
always  afternoon.  It  brought  dreams  of  romance 
to  her  heart,  and  made  starry  flowers  of  its  own 
colour  blossom  in  her  eyes.  She  crushed  the  hat 
softly  down  upon  her  dark,  winging  hair,  crinking  and 
shaping  it  to  frame  her  face  at  the  right  angle.  Her 
fate  was  sealed. 

"All  right,"  she  said,  in  a  slow,  dreamy  voice. 
"  Let's  arrange  it." 

So  while  the  train  swooped  on  its  way  to  the  port 
whence  the  great  ships  turn  their  noses  towards  the 
Southern  Cross,  they  drew  up  the  plot,  and  the  roles 
were  cast.  Diana  Vernilands,  for  the  duration  of  the 
voyage  only,  was  to  be  the  penniless,  friendless  English 
girl,  who  could  go  her  ways  freely  and  talk  and  mix 
with  any  one  she  liked  without  being  watched  and 
criticized.  April  Poole,  in  the  lovely  hats  and  gowns 
and  jewels  of  Lady  Diana,  would  accept  the  dignity 
and  social  obligations  that  hedge  a  peer's  daughter, 
even  on  a  voyage  to  South  Africa.  On  arrival  at  the 
Cape,  each  to  assume  her  identity  and  disappear  from 
the  ken  of  their  fellow-travellers:  April  to  be  swal- 
lowed up  by  a  Cape  suburb,  where  she  was  engaged  to 
teach  music  and  French  to  the  four  daughters  of  a 
rich  wine-grower;  Diana  to  proceed  to  her  destination 
— the  farm  of  an  eccentric  woman  painter,  somewhere 
on  the  veld. 

It  all  looked  as  simple  and  harmless  as  picking 
apples  in  an  orchard.  No  one  would  be  any  the 
wiser,  they  said,  and  no  harm  would  accrue  to  anybody, 
while  each  girl  would  have  the  experience  of  enjoying 


254  April  Folly 

herself  in  a  new  and  original  fashion.  The  only 
things  they  did  not  take  into  their  calculations  were 
their  personal  idiosyncrasies  and  the  machinations 
of  an  old  hag  called  Fate. 

"What  a  time  I'll  have!"  cried  Diana.  "Though 
what  you  will  get  out  of  it  as  the  Earl  of  Roscannon's 
daughter  beats  me.  You  won't  be  sick  of  it  half  way 
and  want  to  change  back,  I  hope?" 

"  If  you  only  knew  how  sick  I  am  of  being  April 
Poole  you  wouldn't  be  afraid,"  was  the  fervent 
answer.  Diana  looked  at  her  curiously. 

"It  can't  be  only  the  clothes — though  of  course  I 
imagine  it  must  be  rotten,  not  having  the  right  clothes. 
By  the  way,  there  are  plenty  for  us  both,  you  know. 
I  did  myself  well  in  the  shopping  line,  fortunately." 

"  I  should  hardly  expect  you  to  wear  mine, "  said 
April  drily.  "No,  as  you  rightly  suspect,  it  isn't  for 
the  clothes,  though  they  fascinate  and  lure  me.  And 
it  isn't  for  the  honour  and  glory  of  being  Lady  Diana, 
though  that  is  fascinating  too,  and  it  will  be  priceless 
to  have  the  joke  on  the  rest  of  the  world  for  once.  It 
is  for  various  subtle  reasons  which  I  don't  suppose 
you  would  altogether  understand.  .  .  ." 

"Never  mind  them,  then,"  interrupted  Diana. 
"I'm  not  a  bit  subtle,  and  don't  care  tuppence  for 
reasons.  All  I  care  about  is  having  a  topping  time 
for  once  in  my  life.  Now,  listen,  I'll  tell  you  a  few 
things  about  myself,  so  that  you  won't  get  bowled 
if  any  one  asks  you.  My  father  is  Lord  Roscannon, 
and  our  place  is  Bethwick  Castle,  in  Northumberland. 
It's  a  gloomy  old  place  that  would  give  you  the 
creeps.  My  mother  died  twenty-two  years  ago  when 
I  was  born,  and  my  father  doesn't  care  about  anything 
except  archaeology,  so  I  have  always  been  in  the 


April  Folly  255 

clutches  of  my  maiden  aunt,  Lady  Grizel  Vernilands, 
who  ruled  Bethwick  and  me  as  long  as  I  can  remember. 
Everyone  called  her  the  Grizzly  Bear. 

"Never  mind,  she's  dead  now,  and  I  have  been  able 
to  persuade  papa  that  my  health  needs  a  sea  voyage. 
He  suggested  the  Continent — of  course  with  a  com- 
panion. But  I  have  been  clawed  backwards  and 
forwards  on  the  Continent  for  years  by  Aunt  Grizel, 
and  have  had  enough.  I  chose  Africa,  because  it 
sounds  so  nice  and  racy  in  novels,  doesn't  it?  Fortu- 
nately papa's  greatest  friend,  a  parson  and  also  an 
archaeologist,  has  a  daughter  out  there.  She  paints, 
and  lives  on  a  farm  somewhere  on  the  veld  in  the 
Cape  Colony,  so  I  am  allowed  to  go  and  stay  with  her 
for  three  months. 

"  I  even  escaped  the  company  of  my  maid,  as  you 
saw,  though  she  tried  hard  to  persuade  papa  that  I 
should  get  into  trouble  without  her.  I  believe  she 
would  have  come  at  the  last,  even  without  luggage, 
if  I  hadn't  been  too  smart  for  her  and  had  the  door 
locked.  Lucky,  wasn't  it?  We  should  never  have 
been  able  to  execute  our  little  scheme  with  her  about. 
Now  tell  me  your  story." 

"No  need  to  go  too  closely  into  that,"  said  April. 
"No  one  will  put  you  any  piercing  questions  about 
my  family,  or  be  in  a  position  to  contradict  your 
statements." 

The  Poole  family  tree,  in  fact,  grew  as  tall  and  old 
as  the  Roscannon's  upon  the  pages  of  heraldry,  but 
drink  and  riotous  living  had  perished  its  roots  and 
rotted  its  branches  long  before  April  was  born.  Her 
father,  its  last  hope,  had  been  a  scamp  and  gamester 
who  broke  his  wife's  heart  and  bequeathed  the  cup  of 
poverty  and  despair  to  his  child's  lips.  But  these 


256  April  Folly 

were  things  locked  in  April's  heart,  and  not  for  idle 
telling  in  a  railway  carriage. 

"I  am  an  orphan  without  relatives  or  friends,"  she 
went  on  quietly.  "No  assets  except  musical  tastes 
and  a  knowledge  of  languages,  picked  up  in  cheap 
Continental  schools.  I  am  twenty,  and  rather  em- 
bittered by  life,  but  I  try  not  to  be,  because  there's 
nothing  can  blacken  the  face  of  the  sun  like  bitterness 
of  heart,  is  there?  It  can  spoil  even  a  spring  day." 

Diana  looked  vague.  In  spite  of  tilts  and  tourna- 
ments with  the  Grizzly  Bear,  she  had  no  more  know- 
ledge of  that  affliction  of  bitterness  to  which  April 
referred  than  of  the  bitterness  of  affliction.  The 
fact  was  patent  in  the  gay  light  of  her  sherry-brown 
eye  and  her  red  mouth,  so  avid  for  pleasure.  The  book 
of  life's  difficulties,  well  conned  by  April  Poole,  was 
still  closed  to  the  Earl's  only  daughter. 

"Perhaps  she  will  know  a  little  more  about  it  by 
the  end  of  the  voyage,"  thought  April,  but  without 
a  tinge  of  malice,  for  in  truth  she  was  neither  malicious 
nor  bitter,  though  she  often  pretended  to  herself  to  be 
both.  Whatever  life  had  done  to  her,  it  had  not 
yet  robbed  her  of  her  powers  of  resilience,  nor  quenched 
her  belief  in  the  ultimate  benevolence  of  Fate.  Her 
joy  in  voyaging  to  a  great  unknown  land  had  been 
a  little  dimmed  by  the  prospect  of  the  monotonous 
drudgery  that  awaits  most  governesses,  but  here, 
already  cropping  up  by  the  wayside,  was  a  compensat- 
ing adventure,  and  her  heart,  which  had  been  reposing 
in  her  boots,  took  little  wings  of  delight  unto  itself 
and  nearly  flew  away  with  excitement. 

Eager  as  Diana,  she  threw  herself  into  a  discussion 
of  clothes,  personal  tastes  and  habits,  the  exchange 
of  cabins,  and  ways  and  means  of  circumventing  the 


April  Folly  257 

curiosity  and  suspicion  of  their  fellow-travellers. 
Diana  could  not  do  her  own  hair,  but  had  ascertained 
that  there  was  a  hairdresser  on  board  whom  she  could 
visit  every  day.  The  ticket  for  her  first-class  state- 
room she  cheerfully  handed  over  to  April,  in  exchange 
for  one  which  gave  possession  of  a  berth  in  a  cheaper 
cabin  to  be  shared  with  another  woman. 

"We  must  do  the  thing  thoroughly,"  she  insisted, 
"and  I  shan't  mind  sharing  in  the  least.  It  may  be 
amusing  if  the  other  woman  is  pleasant.  I  don't 
think  you  and  I  had  better  know  each  other  too  well 
to  begin  with,  do  you?  We  can  pretend  to  make 
friends  as  the  voyage  goes  on.  Or  shall  we  say  that 
we  were  at  school  together?" 

"Let  us  say  as  little  as  possible,"  said  April,  who 
had  an  objection  to  telling  lies,  even  little  white  ones. 
But  Diana  did  not  share  her  scruples,  and  plainly 
averred  her  intention  of  "spinning  a  yarn"  to  any  one 
who  asked  questions. 

In  a  whirl  of  excitement  they  arrived  at  the  docks, 
and  were  hustled  with  the  rest  of  the  crowd  up  the 
steep  gangway  that  led  to  the  deck  of  the  Union 
Castle  Company's  latest  and  most  modern  liner,  the 
Clarendon  Castle.  April,  who  had  exchanged  her 
cloth  coat  for  Diana's  sables,  felt  the  eyes  of  the 
world  burning  and  piercing  through  the  costly  furs 
to  the  secret  in  her  bosom.  But  Diana  felt  no  such 
discomfort.  Jubilant  in  her  new-found  liberty,  she 
paced  the  decks,  inspected  the  ship,  made  friends 
with  the  first  officer  and  several  passengers,  and 
finally  went  down  to  lunch  in  the  dining  saloon. 
She  seated  herself  at  the  general  table,  and  as  a 
number  of  merry  people  were  toasting  each  other 
farewell  in  champagne,  she  thought  it  only  fitting  to 
17 


258  April  Folly 

order  a  half-bottle  for  herself.  Some  of  the  women 
looked  at  her  curiously,  but  that  did  not  daunt  Diana, 
especially  after  she  had  begun  on  the  champagne. 

April,  placed  at  some  distance  in  solitary  state, 
noted  and  envied  the  coolness  and  composure  of  her 
fellow-conspirator.  She,  too,  had  meant  to  be  one  of 
the  general  crowd,  but  already  the  news  of  her  rank 
and  state  had  tickled  the  ears  of  the  chief  steward, 
and  she  found  herself  reverently  waylaid  and  con- 
ducted with  ceremony  to  a  small  table,  whence  she 
could  gaze  and  be  gazed  upon  by  the  rest  of  the  world 
without  fear  of  contamination.  A  steward,  told  off 
for  her  special  service,  hovered  about  her  like  a  guardian 
angel,  and  during  the  meal  a  gold-braided  personality 
approached  and,  murmuring  the  Captain's  compli- 
ments, hoped  that  when  the  voyage  had  once  started 
she  would  grace  his  table  by  her  presence.  Afar  off, 
Diana  cast  her  a  grin  over  the  rim  of  a  wine-glass,  but 
gave  no  further  sign  of  recognition. 

It  is  a  phenomenon  well  known  to  travellers,  that 
when  the  last  warning  bell  rings  on  board  a  departing 
ship  all  the  pretty  women  and  interesting  men  go 
ashore,  leaving  only  the  dull  and  fusty  ones  behind. 
Diana  and  April,  however,  were  not  depressed  by  this 
spectacle,  for  to  the  former,  in  her  position  of  free- 
lance, all  men  looked  interesting  and  all  women 
superfluous;  while  April,  in  full  possession  of  the  beauti- 
fully appointed  stateroom  on  the  promenade  deck, 
to  which  she  had  retired  directly  after  lunch,  was  too 
busy  reviewing  the  position  to  think  about  fellow- 
passengers  just  then.  She  was  bothered  over  the 
business  of  sitting  at  the  Captain's  table.  She  had 
seen  him  on  the  boat  deck  as  she  came  aboard,  and 
her  heart  failed  her  at  the  thought  of  deceiving  such  a 


April  Folly  259 

genial,  kindly-looking  man.  It  was  plain  that  the 
experiment  of  "taking  people  in"  was  not  going  to 
be  so  pricelessly  funny  as  she  had  anticipated.  She 
said  so  to  Diana,  who  came  to  her  cabin  as  soon  as 
the  ship  started  to  make  a  selection  of  clothes.  But 
Diana  would  listen  to  none  of  her  virtuous  back- 
slidings. 

"You  can't  back  out  now,"  she  said  firmly.  "A 
bargain's  a  bargain,  and  I've  told  everyone  1  am 
April  Poole,  going  to  Africa  to  be  a  governess,  and 
all  the  ship  knows  you  are  Lady  Diana  Vernil»ands. 
We  should  be  a  spectacle  for  the  gods  if  we  change 
back  now.  No  one  would  believe  us,  either.  We'd 
only  be  looked  upon  with  suspicion  for  the  rest  of  the 
voyage,  and  all  our  fun  and  pleasure  spoilt.  For 
goodness's  sake  don't  be  an  idiot!" 

That  was  all  the  slightly  conscience-stricken  April 
got  for  her  pains,  and  Diana  stalked  off  triumphant, 
lugging  a  suit-case  and  an  armful  of  wraps.  April 
heard  her  explaining  to  a  stewardess  in  the  corridor 
that  her  baggage  had  got  mixed  up  with  Lady  Diana 
Verniland's,  and  that  it  was  very  awkward;  and  then 
she  saw  and  heard  no  more  of  her  for  several  days. 
For  immediately  on  emerging  from  the  Solent  the 
Clarendon  ran  into  very  heavy  weather,  which  con- 
tinued until  the  Bay  of  Biscay  was  passed,  keeping 
all  but  the  hardiest  travellers  confined  to  their  cabins. 
April,  who  was  among  the  victims,  had  plenty  of 
solitary  leisure  in  which  to  repent  her  misdeed  if  she 
felt  so  inclined.  But  the  impulse  to  repent  soon 
passed,  and  workaday  wisdom  reassured  her  that 
what  she  and  Diana  were  doing  was  really  very  harm- 
less and  of  no  consequence  to  any  one  but  themselves. 
No  very  great  effort  was  required  to  make  the  best 


260  April  Folly 

of  the  situation  and  enjoy  it  as  much  as  Diana  had 
evidently  determined  to  do.  1 1  was  very  pleasant,  after 
all,  to  be  waited  on  and  fussed  about  as  though  she 
were  a  person  of  infinite  importance  instead  of  a  shabby, 
trim  governess.  She,  who  had  padded  the  bumps  of 
life  for  others  so  long,  could  now  thoroughly  appreciate 
having  the  same  service  performed  for  herself. 

Being  of  a  nature  neither  arrogant  nor  impatient, 
she  soon  endeared  herself  to  the  stewardesses  and 
serving-people,  who,  having  some  experience  in  the 
tempers  and  tantrums  of  fine  ladies,  were  agreeably 
surprised  by  her  gentle  and  charming  manner,  and 
could  not  do  enough  for  her  in  return. 

After  the  first  few  days  of  frightful  illness  she  began 
to  feel  better,  and  was  able  to  be  moved  from  her 
cabin  to  the  ladies'  lounge.  Wrapped  in  one  or  other 
of  Diana's  ravishing  boudoir  garments  of  silk  and 
fur,  she  was  supported  there  every  morning,  ensconced 
on  the  most  luxurious  sofa,  and  surrounded  by  atten- 
tions from  the  other  semi-invalids.  Nothing  was  too 
good  for  the  peer's  delightful  daughter,  and  everyone 
behaved  as  if  she  were  an  angel  dropped  from  heaven. 
In  fact,  with  the  lovely  spirituelle  air  her  illness  had 
given,  and  the  sea  bloom  just  beginning  to  tint  her 
cheeks  again  and  dew  her  eyes,  she  looked  rather 
like  one. 

The  ship's  doctor,  who  was  young  and  susceptible, 
broke  it  gently  to  such  of  the  male  passengers  who 
were  able  to  bear  the  strain  that  a  dazzling  joy  awaited 
their  eyes  when  "Lady  Diana"  should  be  well  enough 
to  appear  in  public.  The  story  of  her  charming  looks 
and  ways  circulated  softly  round  the  boat,  even  as  a 
pleasant  wine  circulates  in  the  veins. 

April  knew  nothing  of  these  things.     She  only  felt 


April  Folly  261 

very  happy  in  the  kindness  of  everybody,  in  the 
gradual  steadying  of  the  ship,  now  emerging  from  the 
troubled  Bay  into  smoother,  warmer  waters,  and  in 
the  prospect  of  soon  being  allowed  to  go  on  deck. 
Sometimes  she  wondered  why  the  real  Diana  gave  no 
sign,  but  came  to  the  conclusion  that  she,  too,  had 
been  ill. 

It  was  a  natural  enough  thing  to  ask  the  doctor, 
when  they  were  alone  one  day,  if  Miss  Poole  was 
among  his  patients.  He  seemed  sufficiently  astonished 
by  the  query. 

"Miss  Poole!"  he  echoed.  "Oh,  no;  she's  not  ill- 
far  from  it.  Do  you  know  her?" 

"Certainly  I  know  her,"  smiled  April,  astonished 
in  her  turn.  "  I  was  wondering  why  she  had  not 
been  to  see  me." 

The  doctor  murmured  something  cryptic  about  her 
having  "no  doubt  been  too  busy,"  and  seemed  to 
have  nothing  further  to  say.  The  face  of  the  lounge 
stewardess  wore  a  peculiar  expression.  A  quiet, 
rather  austere-looking  woman,  she  always  behaved 
like  a  mummy  in  the  doctor's  presence,  standing 
behind  him  with  folded  hands  and  mute  lips.  But 
when  he  had  gone  she  came  to  life. 

"  Do  you  mean  the  young  lady  whose  baggage  got 
mixed  with  yours  at  the  beginning  of  the  voyage,  my 
lady?"  she  asked.  April  remembered  the  necessity 
to  walk  delicately. 

"Yes  ...  a  pretty,  fair  girl,"  she  said  cautiously. 
"Very  gay  and  bright." 

"Very,"  agreed  the  stewardess  laconically.  Then 
the  source  of  her  eloquence  dried  up  even  as  the 
doctor's  had  done.  April  began  to  think  it  was  time 
to  go  on  deck  and  see  what  was  doing. 


262  April  Folly 

The  next  day  was  not  only  gloriously  fine,  but  the 
ship  came  to  harbour  by  that  island  which  is  as  a 
bouquet  of  fruit  and  flowers  pinned  to  a  jagged  breast. 
There  seems  always  something  sinister  lurking  behind 
the  wreathed  and  radiant  beauty  of  Madeira;  but  to 
those  who  come  in  ships  from  out  the  bitter  fogs  of 
England  she  is  a  siren  with  a  blue  and  golden  smile,  and 
her  gift-laden  hands  are  soothing  and  serene. 

April,  lying  in  her  deck-chair,  thought  she  had  come 
to  fairyland.  Escorted  upstairs  by  the  doctor  and  a 
retinue  of  stewardesses,  she  was  installed  in  a  sheltered 
corner  that  commanded  the  whole  brilliant  scene. 
The  purser  found  her  the  most  comfortable  of  chairs, 
the  first  officer  brought  her  a  bamboo  table  from  his 
cabin  for  her  books,  the  Captain  stayed  awhile  from 
his  duties  to  congratulate  her  on  her  recovery,  and 
several  men  loitered  near  at  hand  casting  reverently 
admiring  glances.  But  she  had  eyes  for  nothing  save 
the  vivid  scene  before  her.  The  smiling  island,  with  its 
head  in  the  mists  and  its  feet  in  a  sapphire  sea  still  as  a 
painted  lake;  boats  full  of  flowers,  corals,  ivories, 
silken  embroideries  and  unknown  fruits;  the  burnished 
bodies  of  diving  boys;  the  odour  of  spices  and  sandal- 
wood;  the  clatter  of  strange  tongues;  the  dark  faces 
and  bright  clothes  of  the  invading  crowds  of  natives. 

It  was  a  spectacle  to  enchant  the  senses.  She 
could  not  think  why  so  many  passengers  were  scurry- 
ing to  and  fro  anxious  to  be  taken  ashore.  It  seemed 
as  foolish  as  to  try  to  get  into  a  picture  instead  of 
sitting  before  it. 

Everyone  was  wearing  light  clothes,  for  summer 
had  come  at  full  bound,  and  soon  they  would  be  in  the 
tropics.  There  were  beautifully  cut  white  linen  suits, 
smart  skirts,  and  filmy  blouses.  A  popular  saying  on 


April  Folly  263 

the  Cape  mail-boats  is  that  passengers  to  South 
Africa  are  all  clothes  and  no  money,  while  passengers 
returning  are  all  money  and  no  clothes.  April  did 
not  know  the  epigram,  nor  the  truth  of  it.  But  she 
could  plainly  perceive  that  in  the  scanty  kit  of  April 
Poole  she  would  have  been  very  much  out  of  the  run- 
ning among  this  smart  and  jaunty  crowd. 

As  it  was,  clad  in  a  sleek  silken  muslin  of  lovely 
lines,  snowy  shoes  and  stockings,  and  a  rose-laden 
hat,  she  could  hold  her  own  with  any  one.  A  longing 
filled  her  to  see  Diana  Vernilands.  She  wanted  to 
talk  to  her,  exchange  confidences,  thank  her,  bless 
her,  and,  above  all,  to  find  out  what  it  was  she  found 
so  attractive  in  her  side  of  the  game.  What  on  earth 
could  it  be  that  was  so  much  more  ravishing  than  to 
be  at  peace  with  the  world,  respected  by  it,  liked  by 
it,  and  yet  independent  of  it?  To  wear  lovely  clothes 
in  which  you  could  enjoy  the  knowledge  of  looking 
charming  without  meeting  suspicion  in  the  eyes  of 
women  and  the  "good-hunting"  glance  in  the  eyes  of 
men.  This  last  constituted,  indeed,  that  "subtle 
reason"  at  which  she  had  hinted  to  Diana.  Life  had 
harried  April  too  much  for  her  few  years.  Obliged 
to  travel  its  highways  alone  and  unprotected,  some 
of  the  adventures  encountered  there  had  cut  her  to  the 
quick.  While  women  looked  askance  at  her,  men 
looked  too  hard,  and  too  long.  Doubtless  she  had 
met  the  wrong  kind.  Lonely  young  girls  without 
money  or  connections  do  not  always  find  the  knightly 
and  chivalrous  gentlemen  of  their  dreams!  Naturally 
pure-hearted  and  high-minded,  she  had  asked  nothing 
of  those  she  did  meet  save  respect  and  good-comrade- 
ship; but  either  she  was  too  pretty  or  peculiarly 
unfortunate,  for  she  had  seldom  been  offered  either. 


264  April  Folly 

it  was  something,  perhaps,  that  she  still  kept  dreams, 
and  a  belief  that  there  were  knightly  and  chivalrous 
men  somewhere  in  the  world,  though  they  might  not 
be  for  her. 

She  was  still,  like  Omar,  wondering  "What  the 
vinters  buy  one  half  so  precious  as  the  stuff  they  sell" 
— lost  in  cogitations  about  Diana,  when  the  subject 
of  her  thoughts,  accompanied  by  three  men,  came 
down  a  companion-way  from  an  upper  deck.  They 
were  evidently  set  for  the  shore,  and  making  their 
way  to  the  ship's  side  as  if  certain  that  the  best  places 
in  the  best  boats  were  preserved  for  them. 

Diana's  appearance  betrayed  the  lack  of  a  maid. 
Her  dress  was  crumpled,  her  shoes  badly  laced,  and 
her  hat  cocked  carelessly  upon  her  head.  But  the 
subtle  Italian  hand  of  the  ship's  coiffeur  had  touched 
her  hair,  saving  the  situation.  Also,  there  was  a 
sparkle  in  her  eye  and  a  joie  de  vivre  in  her  laughter  that 
made  up  for  many  deficiencies.  Her  companions 
appeared  to  have  been  picked  for  their  good  looks, 
sleek  heads,  and  immaculate  clothes.  One,  with  whom 
she  palpably  stood  on  the  happiest  of  terms,  was,  in 
fact,  strikingly  handsome.  The  other  two,  loitering 
in  her  wake,  seemed  content  if  she  tossed  them  a  word 
over  her  shoulder  from  time  to  time.  They  all  be- 
haved as  if  they  had  bought  the  ship,  and  found  the 
presence  of  the  rest  of  the  passengers  an  impertinence. 
Such  of  the  latter  as  were  still  on  board  returned  the 
compliment  according  to  sex  and  the  ability  that  was 
theirs.  The  men  plainly  admired  Diana's  nerve, 
while  wondering  with  their  eyebrows  what  on  earth 
she  could  see  in  those  three  footling  fellows.  The 
women  looked  pityingly  at  the  men,  and  with  their 
noses  indicated  that  Diana  was  some  kind  of  dangerous 


April  Folly  265 

and  unpleasant  animal  escaped  from  a  menagerie. 
A  lady  who  had  seated  herself  by  April  in  a  chair 
labelled  "  Major  Sarle, "  curled  her  lip  at  the  passing 
group  in  a  manner  painfully  familiar  to  her  neighbour. 
Presently,  when  they  were  left  alone,  the  rest  of  the 
world  having  disappeared  down  the  ship's  side,  she 
addressed  April,  but  with  a  very  different  expression 
on  her  face. 

"You  are  Lady  Diana  Vernilands,  I  think?"  she 
said,  smiling  in  a  friendly  manner.  "  I  am  Mrs. 
Stanislaw.  So  glad  to  see  you  up." 

April  was  instantly  on  the  alert.  Not  only  did  she 
know  the  name  of  Mrs.  Lionel  Stanislaw,  but  had  very 
good  cause  to  remember  it  as  that  of  the  lady  with 
whom  she  was  to  have  shared  a  cabin.  The  smiling 
face  had  once  been  a  pretty  one,  but  the  tide  of  youth 
was  fast  receding,  leaving  uncovered  a  bleak  and 
barren  shore,  whose  chief  salients  were  a  disdainful 
nose  and  a  mouth  which  looked  as  if  it  might  be  able 
to  say  bitter  things.  The  eyes,  however,  were  still 
handsome,  if  supercilious,  and  her  manners  velvety. 
No  doubt  there  were  claws  beneath  the  velvet,  but 
they  were  not  for  April.  .  .  .  only  for  the  girl  who  was 
using  April's  name!  They  had  not  talked  for  five 
minutes  before  she  realized  that  in  this  woman  Diana 
had  an  enemy.  Not  that  Mrs.  Stanislaw's  words 
were  censorious.  She  was  too  clever  for  that. 
Her  remarks  were  merely  deprecative  and  full  of 
pity. 

"A  most  amazing  creature, "she  said  gently,  "but 
rather  disturbing  to  live  with.  I  confess  I  wish  I  had 
been  cribbed  and  cabined  with  someone  who  had 
more  conventional  manners  and  kept  earlier  hours." 

Here  was  something  for  April  to  ponder. 


266  April  Folly 

"She  is  very  young,"  she  faltered  at  length,  and 
was  unwise  enough  to  add,  "and  pretty." 

These  being  two  heinous  offences  in  the  eyes  of 
Mrs.  Stanislaw,  she  proceeded  at  once  to  hang,  draw, 
and  quarter  the  criminal.  But  her  voice  was  tenderer 
than  before. 

"Yes,  isn't  it  a  pity?  .  .  .  and  so  foolishly  indis- 
creet. Do  you  know,  they  tell  me  that  she  is  spoken 
of  by  all  the  men  on  the  ship  as  the  April  Fool,  a 
parody  on  her  name,  which  is  April  Poole." 

Pleasant  hearing  for  her  listener,  who  flushed  scarlet. 

"Can  you  imagine  any  one  who  has  a  living  to 
earn  being  so  unwise?  I  find  it  difficult  to  believe 
she  is  going  to  the  Cape  to  teach  someone's  children. 
I  only  hope  that  the  story  of  her  indiscretions  will  not 
precede  her,  poor  girl." 

April  was  dumb.  Mrs.  Stanislaw  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  she  was  dull  and  rather  lacking  in 
feminine  sweetness,  and  after  a  while  went  away  to 
bargain  with  a  native  for  some  embroideries.  She 
would  have  been  delighted  to  know  what  a  poisoned 
barb  she  had  implanted  and  left  quivering  in  the  side 
of  the  so-called  Lady  Diana. 

Beneath  the  folded  V  of  filmy  lace  on  April's  bosom 
her  heart  was  beating  passionately,  and  the  rose- 
wreathed  hat  fortunately  drooped  enough  to  hide 
the  tears  of  mortification  that  filled  her  eyes.  Her 
name  to  be  parodied  and  bandied  about  the  ship  on 
men's  lips!  A  poor  thing,  but  her  own!  One  that 
for  all  her  ups  and  downs  she  had  striven  and  contrived 
to  keep  untarnished.  How  dared  Diana  Vernilands 
do  this  thing  to  her?  What  foolishness  had  she 
herself  been  guilty  of  to  put  it  in  another's  power  to 
thus  injure  her? 


April  Folly  267 

Her  eyes  were  so  blurred  with  tears  that  she  did 
not  notice  at  what  particular  moment  another  occu- 
pant had  usurped  the  chair  of  Major  Sarle.  It  was 
a  man  this  time.  April  hastily  seized  a  book  and 
began  to  read.  He  must  have  stolen  up  with  the 
silence  of  a  tiger,  and  he  reminded  her  of  tigers  some- 
how, though  she  could  not  quite  tell  why,  except 
that  he  was  curiously  powerful  and  graceful  looking. 
His  hair,  which  grew  in  a  thick  short  mat,  was  strongly 
sprinkled  with  silver,  but  his  skin,  though  brick-red, 
was  unlined.  She  judged  him  to  be  a  sailor-man, 
for  he  had  the  clear  and  innocent  eye  of  one  who  has 
looked  long  on  great  spaces.  These  were  her  conclu- 
sions, made  while  diligently  reading  her  book.  He,  too, 
was  busy  reading  in  the  same  fashion,  but,  manlike, 
was  slower  in  his  deductions.  By  the  time  she  had  fin- 
ished with  his  hair  he  had  not  got  much  further  than 
her  charming  ankles.  Certainly,  he  had  ascertained 
that  she  was  a  pretty  woman  before  he  took  possession 
of  his  chair,  but  that  was  merely  instinct,  the  fulfilling 
of  a  human  law.  Detail,  like  destruction,  was  to 
come  after.  He  lingered  over  the  first  detail.  They 
were  such  very  pretty  ankles.  It  did  not  seem  right 
that  they  should  be  resting  on  the  hard  deck  instead 
of  on  a  canvas  foot-rest.  He  remembered  that  his  own 
chair  had  a  foot-rest,  but  it  was  in  his  cabin.  Should 
he  go  and  fetch  it?  Dared  he  offer  it  to  her?  He  was 
on  hail-fellow-well-met  terms  with  lions  and  tigers, 
as  April  had  curiously  divined,  but  having  enjoyed 
fewer  encounters  with  women,  was  slightly  shy  of 
them.  However,  being  naturally  courageous,  he 
might  presently  have  been  observed  emerging  from 
a  deck  cabin  with  a  canvas  foot-rest  in  his  hand,  and 
it  was  only  the  natural  sequence  of  events  that  while 


268  April  Folly 

attempting  to  hitch  it  on  his  chair  his  guileless  gaze 
should  discover  that  April's  feet  were  without  support. 
He  looked  so  shy  and  kind  for  such  a  sun-bitten, 
weather-hardened  creature,  that  she  had  no  heart  to 
refuse  the  friendly  offer,  even  had  she  felt  the  incli- 
nation. Besides,  the  advances  made  to  her  in  the 
role  of  Lady  Diana  were  very  different  to  those 
she  had  so  often  been  obliged  to  repulse  as  April 
Poole. 

She  felt,  too,  that  here  was  a  man  not  trying  to 
make  friends  with  any  ulterior  motive,  but  just 
because  on  this  pleasant,  delightful  morning  it  was 
pleasant  and  delightful  to  talk  to  someone  and  share 
the  pleasure. 

Vereker  Sarle  had  made  the  voyage  to  South  Africa 
so  many  times  that  he  had  lost  count  of  them,  and 
knew  Madeira  so  well  that  it  bored  him  to  go  ashore 
there  any  more. 

"We  have  the  best  of  it  from  here,  in  spite  of  a 
little  coal  dust,"  he  told  her,  for  with  a  great  deal  of 
rattling,  banging,  and  singing  on  the  lower  decks  the 
ship  was  taking  on  her  voyage  ration  of  coal.  "Still, 
you  should  go  ashore  and  see  it  some  time.  It  is 
worth  a  visit  for  the  sake  of  the  gardens,  the  breakfast 
of  fresh  fish  at  the  hotel  on  the  hilltop,  and  the 
bumping  rush  down  again  in  the  man-drawn  sleighs." 

He  took  it  for  granted  that  she  was  a  woman  travel- 
ling for  pleasure  and  likely  to  be  back  this  way  soon. 
While  she  gave  a  little  inward  sigh,  wondering  whether 
she  would  ever  have  the  money  to  return  to  England, 
or  if  it  would  be  her  fate  to  live  in  exile  for  ever. 

Sarle  presented  her  with  one  of  his  simple  maxims 
of  life. 

"All  good  citizens  of  the  world  should  do  every- 


April  Folly  269 

thing  once  and  once  only,"  he  averred,  with  his 
frank  and  disarming  smile.  "  If  we  stuck  to  that  rule 
life  would  never  go  stale  on  us." 

"  I'm  afraid  it  would  hardly  apply  to  everyday  life 
and  all  the  weary  things  we  have  to  do  over  and  over 
again." 

"  I  was  thinking  of  the  big  things,"  he  said  slowly. 
"Like  potting  your  first  elephant  or  falling  in  love. 
I  don't  know  what  equivalents  women  have  for  these 
things." 

April  could  not  forbear  a  little  ripple  of  laughter. 

"  I  believe  they  fall  in  love,  too,  sometimes, "  she 
said.  But  Sarle,  with  his  sea-blue  gaze  on  her,  an- 
swered gravely: 

"  I  know  very  little  about  them." 

It  was  hard  to  decide  whether  he  was  an  expert  flirt 
with  new  methods,  or  really  and  truly  a  man  with  a 
heart  as  guileless  as  his  eyes.  But,  at  any  rate,  he 
was  amusing,  and  April  forgot  her  tears  and  anger 
completely  in  the  pleasant  hour  they  spent  together 
until  the  passengers,  recalled  by  the  ship's  siren, 
began  to  return  from  ashore. 

Diana  and  her  bodyguard  were  the  last  to  arrive, 
the  men  laden  with  fruit,  flowers,  and  numerous 
parcels,  and  the  girl  more  openly  careless  of  the  rest 
of  the  world  than  before.  They  took  possession  of  a 
group  of  chairs  that  did  not  belong  to  them,  and 
scattered  their  possessions  upon  the  deck.  Pome- 
granates, nectarines,  and  bananas  began  to  roll  in 
every  direction,  to  the  inconvenience  of  the  passers- 
by,  but  what  did  that  matter  ?  Diana  lit  a  cigarette, 
declaring  that  it  was  too  hot  for  words,  and  that  she 
must  have  a  John  Collins.  They  all  ordered  John 
Collinses.  The  handsome  man  fanned  Diana  with  a 


270  April  Folly 

large  palm  leaf,  and  she  looked  at  him  with  languorous 
eyes. 

April  grew  hot  inside  her  skin.  Conversation 
interrupted  by  the  noise  around  them,  both  she  and 
Sarle  had  immersed  themselves  once  more  in  their 
books.  But  April,  at  least,  was  profoundly  conscious 
of  everything  said  and  done  by  the  neighbouring 
group,  and  she  longed  to  take  Diana  Vernilands  by 
the  shoulders  and  give  her  a  sound  shaking.  As  for 
the  three  men  who  were  encouraging  and  abetting  the 
little  minx,  it  would  have  been  a  pleasure  to  push 
them  separately  and  singly  overboard.  She  did  not 
know  how  she  could  have  managed  to  sit  so  still, 
except  that  Sarle  was  there  reading  by  her  side,  silent 
and  calm,  apparently  noticing  nothing  extraordinary 
in  the  behaviour  of  their  neighbours. 

A  steward  brought  the  John  Collinses — four  tall 
glasses  of  pale  liquid  and  ice,  some  stuff  red  as  blood 
floating  on  the  top.  No  sooner  had  Diana  tasted 
hers  than  she  set  up  a  loud  wail  that  there  was  not 
enough  Angostura  in  it.  One  of  the  men  hurried  away 
to  have  this  grave  defect  remedied,  and  the  moment 
he  was  out  of  sight  Diana  took  up  his  as  yet  un- 
touched glass,  and  with  two  long  straws  between 
her  lips,  skilfully  sucked  all  the  red  stuff  from  the 
top  of  the  drink  and  replaced  the  glass.  Above 
the  delighted  laughter  of  her  companions,  April 
heard  a  woman's  scornful  remark  further  down  the 
deck: 

"It  is  only  the  April  Fool!" 

That  was  the  little  more  that  proved  too  much.  The 
real  April  closed  her  book  sharply  and  left  her  chair. 
Walking  to  the  deck-rail,  she  stood  leaning  over, 
thinking  hard,  trying  to  decide  how  best  to  get  hold 


April  Folly  271 

of  Diana  Vernilands  and  tell  her  firmly  that  this  folly 
must  stop  at  once. 

She  felt  very  miserable.  Madeira,  fading  in  the  wake 
of  the  ship,  with  already  the  blue  haze  of  distance 
blurring  its  outlines,  seemed  to  her  like  the  dream  she 
had  lived  in  these  last  few  days  .  .  .  the  golden  dream 
in  which  everyone  liked  and  trusted  her,  and  her 
beauty  was  a  pleasure  instead  of  a  burden.  To- 
morrow she  must  return  to  her  destiny  of  shabby 
clothes  and  second  places,  with  the  added  bitterness 
of  knowing  her  name  made  the  byword  of  the  ship! 
That  was  something  she  could  never  live  down,  if  the 
voyage  lasted  a  year.  There  would  merely  be  two 
April  fools  instead  of  one,  and  she  the  wretched  mas- 
querader  in  borrowed  plumes  not  the  least  of  them! 
Slowly  she  turned  away  from  the  rail  and  went  to  her 
cabin.  A  line  sent  by  a  steward  brought  Diana  there 
at  the  double-quick.  She  burst  into  the  cabin,  the 
open  note  in  her  hand. 

"What  do  you  mean?  Is  this  the  way  you  keep 
faith?  .  .  .  Trying  to  slither  out  of  our  bargain 
before  it  is  a  week  old!" 

"It  is  you  who  have  broken  faith,"  retorted  April 
indignantly.  "Surely  it  was  in  the  bargain  that  you 
should  behave  with  common  decency  and  not  make 
my  name  notorious!" 

"Rot!"  was  the  airy  answer.  "A  few  old  pussy 
cats  with  their  fur  brushed  the  wrong  way,  that's  all. 
Who's  going  to  mind  what  they  say?" 

"  Do  you  realize  that  you  are  known  from  one  end 
of  the  ship  to  the  other  as  the  April  Fool?" 

Diana  burst  out  laughing. 

"  1  know  who  started  that  .  .  .  the  poisonous  asp 
I  share  my  cabin  with.  Just  because  I  have  seen  her 


272  April  Folly 

putting  on  her  transformation,  and  know  how  many 
kinds  of  paints  she  uses  to  build  up  her  face!  If  it 
had  been  you  it  would  have  been  just  the  same. 
You'd  have  been  the  April  Fool  instead,  that's  all. 
You  ought  to  be  jolly  grateful,  instead  of  bullying 
me." 

She  sat  down  on  the  lounge,  smiling  and  sparkling, 
and  took  out  a  cigarette.  April,  in  whom  laughter 
was  always  near  the  surface,  could  have  smiled  herself 
had  she  not  been  nearer  weeping.  After  all,  Diana's 
pranks  and  antics  were  in  no  way  vicious,  but  seemed 
merely  the  result  of  the  lifelong  drastic  restraint 
hitherto  exercised  over  her.  Her  vitality  was  breaking 
out  like  a  fire  that  has  been  too  long  covered  up. 
But  there  was  no  knowing  where  she  would  stop,  and 
what  would  not  be  consumed  in  the  merry  blaze. 

"Well,  I'm  not  grateful,"  she  said  firmly,  "and  if 
you  want  to  be  talked  about  in  future,  it  will  have  to 
be  under  your  own  name." 

"Oh,  April!"  Diana's  jauntiness  left  her  instantly. 
"I  beg  of  you,  don't  be  unkind.  I  am  having  such  a 
topping  time.  I've  never  been  so  happy  in  my  life. 
If  you  only  knew  how  dull  I've  been  with  old  Aunt 
Grizel  always  hounding  me  to  death.  Don't  go  and 
spoil  my  first  good  time." 

"It  is  you  who  are  spoiling  it.  You  forget  that  I 
have  to  earn  my  living  and  am  dependent  on  the 
world's  good  opinion.  Where  shall  I  be  at  the  end 
of  the  voyage  with  the  frivolous  reputation  you  are 
building  up  for  me?" 

"I  won't  do  it  any  more.  I'll  be  so  good.  You'll 
see  how  I'll  change  from  now  on." 

"The  mischief  is  already  done,  unfortunately." 

"All   the  same,  we  can't   possibly  change  now," 


April  Folly  273 

pleaded  Diana.  "What  good  will  it  do  us?  ...  and 
you  will  get  the  worst  of  it,  my  dear.  The  world  is  a 
bundle  of  snobs,  and  the  people  on  the  ship  thoroughly 
represent  it.  They  will  soon  forgive  me,  but  your 
crime  will  be  unpardonable.  They  will  be  simply 
furious  with  you  for  taking  them  in." 

This  was  the  tongue  of  truth,  as  April  knew  well. 
She  looked  at  the  other  girl  ruefully. 

"  How  can  I  trust  you  any  longer?  I  saw  you  with 
those  men  on  deck  .  .  .  playing  the  fool  .  .  .  making 
yourself  cheap.  Oh,  Diana,  how  can  you?  .  .  . 
under  my  name  or  any  other,  you  are  still  a  lady  with 
certain  rules  to  observe." 

Diana  flushed. 

"You  don't  understand  ...  I  can't  explain  to 
you  what  it  means  to  me  to  break  loose  from  conven- 
tion for  a  little  while  .  .  .  it's  something  in  my  blood 
that  has  to  come  out.  But,  indeed,  April,  I  swear 
to  you  if  you  will  only  go  on  I  will  behave.  I  really 
will.  I  can't  help  what  is  past,  but  there  shall  be 
nothing  fresh  for  them  to  carp  at  in  the  future,  any- 
how. Do  be  a  sport  and  consent,  won't  you?" 

In  the  end,  by  pleading,  beguiling,  and  piling 
promise  on  promise,  she  got  her  way,  and  thereafter 
the  game  went  on — with  a  difference.  They  still 
called  her  the  April  Fool,  because  names  like  that 
stick;  but  as  far  as  could  be  seen,  she  committed 
no  fresh  escapades  to  deserve  the  title.  Yet  the  real 
April  Poole  sometimes  wondered  if  the  last  phase 
of  this  folly  was  not  worse  than  the  first.  She  could 
not  in  justice  deny  that  Diana  was  much  quieter  and 
more  orderly,  but  it  seemed  a  pity  that  her  quietness 
should  take  the  form  of  sitting  for  long  hours  at  a 
time  in  rapt  silence  with  a  certain  extremely  handsome 


274  April  Folly 

man.  This  was  Captain  the  Hon.  Geoffrey  Bellew, 
on  his  way  to  South  Africa  as  attache  to  a  Governor 
somewhere  in  the  interior.  He  it  was  with  whom 
Diana  had  been  on  such  happy  terms  the  day  of  land- 
ing at  Madeira.  The  two  other  men  had  been  cast 
forth  like  Gadarene  swine.  Bellew  and  Diana  were 
sufficient  unto  themselves.  Eternally  together,  some- 
times they  walked  the  deck,  or  threw  quoits,  or  played 
two-handed  card  games;  but  ever  they  avoided  large 
companionable  games,  and  always  they  sought  the 
dusky  corner  in  which  to  sit  undisturbed,  gazing 
into  each  other's  eyes.  Strictly  speaking,  there  was 
nothing  to  cavil  at  in  this.  Numbers  of  other  couples 
were  doing  the  same.  These  little  games  of  two  and 
two  go  forward  all  the  time  on  voyages  to  the  Cape 
(especially  nearing  the  Equator),  and  are  the  joy  of  the 
genial-hearted.  Even  those  who  have  no  little  games 
of  their  own  are  wont  to  look  on  sympathetically, 
or,  better  still,  to  turn  away  the  understanding  eye. 
The  long,  lazy,  somnolent  days  and  the  magic  nights, 
star-spangled  above  and  lit  with  phosphorescent  seas 
below,  lend  themselves  to  the  dangerous  kind  of 
flirtation  that  says  little  and  looks  much,  and  if  there 
is  any  place  in  the  world  where  Cupid  is  rampant  and 
"Psyche  may  meet  unblamed  her  Eros,"  it  is  on  the 
deck  of  a  liner  in  the  tropics. 

But  either  Diana  was  one  of  those  unfortunate  girls 
who  cannot  glance  over  the  garden  wall  without  being 
accused  of  stealing  peaches,  or  else  she  had  too  thor- 
oughly got  people's  backs  up  during  the  first  week  at 
sea,  for  everyone  looked  cold-eyed  at  her  romance 
and  called  it  unromantic  names.  There  were  con- 
tinual little  undercurrents  of  gossip  going  on  about 
her  beneath  the  otherwise  pleasant  surface  of  everyday 


April  Folly  375 

life.  April  did  not  talk  gossip  nor  listen  to  it,  but  she 
was  vaguely  aware  of  it.  Except  for  this,  she  would 
have  been  the  happiest  girl  in  the  world,  and,  indeed, 
she  did  not  allow  it  to  bother  her  too  much,  having 
made  up  her  mind  to  cast  care  to  the  winds  and  enjoy 
herself  while  the  sun  shone.  Destruction  might  come 
after — at  Cape  Town,  perhaps,  but  if  it  did,  tant  pis! 

Something  of  Diana's  recklessness  entered  into  her, 
only  that  it  did  not  take  the  form  of  outraging  the 
convenances,  but  just  of  enjoying  life  to  the  full  with 
the  permission  and  approval  of  the  world.  She  loved 
the  summer  seas,  and  each  blue  and  golden  hour 
seemed  all  too  short  for  the  pleasure  to  be  stuffed 
into  it. 

Everyone  was  delightful  to  her.  Gone  were  the 
days  when  all  women's  hands  were  against  her  and 
her  hand  against  all  men.  When  she  had  time  to 
think  about  it,  she  fully  recognized  that  most  of  the 
admiration  and  kindness  tendered  to  her  by  the 
other  passengers  was  entirely  worthless,  and  merely 
the  result  of  snobbery. 

But  she  had  neither  time  nor  inclination  to  go  too 
deeply  into  the  matter  with  herself.  Her  heart  very 
ardently  desired  to  believe  that  some  at  least  of  the 
people  who  made  such  a  fuss  over  her  liked  her  for  her- 
self alone,  regardless  of  the  rank  and  wealth  she  was 
supposed  to  possess.  Sarle,  for  instance — Vereker 
Sarle,  the  shy  man  of  wild  places  as  she  soon  learned 
him  to  be,  "the  man  who  owned  the  largest  and  most 
up-to-date  ranch — Northern  Rhodesia,"  people  in- 
formed her  .  .  .  surely  to  him  she  was  a  charming 
girl,  as  well,  or  before,  she  was  Lady  Diana  Vernilands. 
She  wanted  to  believe  it,  and  she  did  believe  it.  Not 
a  very  difficult  task  to  believe  anything  on  sapphire 


276  April  Folly 

seas  decorated  by  golden  dawns  and  rose-red  sunsets. 
Cynical  truths  have  no  room  to  blossom  in  such  sur- 
roundings. It  was  sheer  joy  to  be  alive,  and  she 
threw  herself  into  the  merry  routine  of  the  days  with 
all  the  zest  of  youth.  Her  beautiful,  athletic  figure 
had  been  trained  in  many  gymnasiums,  but  never 
before  had  she  known  the  delight  of  exercise  in  the 
wild,  fresh  air  of  the  open  sea,  where  her  muscles 
felt  like  rippling  music,  and  her  blood  seemed  full  of 
red  roses.  Her  eyes  had  changed  from  their  smoky 
sadness  to  the  dewy  radiance  of  hyacinths  plucked  at 
dawn,  and  her  skin  wore  the  satiny  sheen,  rose-tinted, 
of  perfect  well-being.  She  wished  the  voyage  would 
last  for  ever. 

Nothing  succeeds  like  success.  Because  she  was 
brilliant  and  happy,  and  apparently  had  everything 
she  wanted,  Luck  smiled,  and  all  good  things  came 
her  way.  She  was  acclaimed  a  champion  at  deck 
games,  and  unremittingly  sought  as  a  partner.  In  the 
evenings  she  never  lacked  companions  to  help  her 
dance  the  soles  off  her  shoes.  She  played  auction 
like  a  fiend  and  always  held  the  cards;  won  all  the 
prizes  in  the  sports  for  running,  jumping,  threading 
the  needle,  and  holding  eggs  in  spoons;  bowled  every- 
one at  cricket.  It  seemed  she  could  do  nothing  wrong 
or  badly.  Finally,  at  the  fancy  dress  ball,  when 
everyone  turned  out  in  wonderful  garments  planned 
and  prepared  long  months  before,  she  easily  captured 
the  votes  of  the  crowd  as  the  wearer  of  the  most  origi- 
nal and  charming  costume  created  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment. 

There  had  been  only  one  fancy  dress  in  Diana's 
wardrobe,  that  of  a  Persian  lady;  and  for  once  she 
showed  herself  greedy  in  the  matter  of  clothes,  and 


April  Folly  277 

calmly  commandeered  it  without  consulting  April. 
Yet  the  latter's  fanciful  imitation  of  a  well-known 
poster,  composed  of  inexpensive  calicoes  (bought 
from  that  emporium  of  all  wants  and  wonders — the 
barber's  shop),  had  triumphed  over  the  gorgeous  veils 
and  jewels  and  silken  trousers  of  the  Persian  houri 
and  swept  the  unanimous  vote  of  the  ship  into  April's 
lap.  Enough  in  all  this  to  turn  any  girl's  head,  and 
though  natural  dignity  and  a  certain  attractive  quality 
of  humility  that  was  hers  kept  April's  heart  sweet, 
she  was  sometimes  in  danger  of  becoming  slightly 
tete  tnonUe.  But  she  always  pinched  herself  in  time, 
with  the  reminder  that  it  was  all  only  a  dream  from 
which  she  must  awaken  very  soon.  For  the  nineteen 
halcyon  days  of  the  voyage  were  speeding  by  and 
coming  to  an  end.  Hot,  hard  blue  skies  gleamed  over- 
head, and  at  night  came  the  moon  of  Africa,  pearl- 
white  instead  of  amber-coloured,  as  it  looks  in 
Europe.  Strange  stars  appeared,  too,  bigger,  more 
lustrous,  than  the  stars  of  cooler  climes,  and  seeming 
to  brood  very  low  over  the  world.  The  "Milky 
Way"  was  a  path  of  powdered  silver.  The  "Coal 
Sack"  showed  itself  full  of  brilliant  jewels.  And  the 
Southern  Cross!  When  April  first  saw  it  mystically 
scrolled  across  the  heavens,  like  a  device  upon  the 
shield  azure  of  some  celestial  Galahad,  its  magic  fell 
across  her  soul,  and  would  not  be  lifted. 

This  is  one  of  the  first  spells  Africa  puts  upon  those 
whom  she  means  to  make  her  own.  Ever  after,  with 
the  poignant  memory  of  that  Cross  of  straggling  stars 
there  is  a  thought  of  Africa,  and  the  two  cannot  be 
torn  apart.  For  April  there  was  always  to  be  a 
memory  of  Vereker  Sarle,  too,  associated  with  it,  for 
he  it  was  who  first  picked  out  the  Cross  for  her  in  the 


278  April  Folly 

luminant  heavens,  and  he  it  was  who  said  to  her  on 
the  night  before  they  reached  Cape  Town: 

"There  seems  to  be  some  kind  of  blessing  in  that 
old  Cross  held  out  over  us  as  we  come  trailing  back." 

After  that  first  day  at  Madeira  she  had  not  seen  a 
great  deal  of  Vereker  Sarle.  He  had  dropped  back 
quietly  from  the  crowd  that  ringed  her  in,  and  become 
a  looker-on,  sometimes  barely  that,  for  he  was  a 
great  poker-player,  and  spent  much  time  in  the  smoke- 
room  with  one  or  two  hard-looking  citizens  who  were 
plainly  not  drawing-room  ornaments.  April  had 
missed  him,  with  a  little  pain  in  her  heart,  for  instinct 
told  her  that  he  was  one  of  the  men  who  count  in  the 
world.  Also,  she  had  divined  that  his  heart  was  as 
clear  as  his  eyes.  Though  his  face  was  so  scarred 
and  rugged  as  to  inspire  in  the  wit  of  the  ship  the  jest 
that  it  had  been  chewed  at  by  one  of  the  lions  he  had 
hunted,  there  was  yet  something  in  it  that  suggested 
the  gentleness  of  a  child,  and  that  knight-like  chivalry 
that  she  had  sought  but  never  found  in  any  man.  So 
it  hurt  her  a  little  when  she  thought  of  it  in  the  night 
hours,  that  he  should  keep  aloof  from  her,  yet  in  a 
way  she  was  glad,  for  she  could  not  so  ardently  have 
enjoyed  playing  her  role  if  Sarle  had  looked  on  too 
much  with  his  innocent,  yet  keen  gaze.  It  was  by 
accident  that  he  found  her  alone  that  night,  between 
dinner  and  dancing,  and  they  stayed  looking  at  the 
stars  and  talking  of  the  land  they  were  to  reach 
sometime  within  the  next  two  days.  He  was  not  a 
great  talker,  and  most  of  the  information  April 
gathered  was  in  the  form  of  half-scornful,  half-wistful 
remarks.  He  spoke  of  Africa  as  a  man  might  speak 
of  some  worthless  woman,  whom  he  yet  loved  above 
all  peerless  women.  Of  the  lure  and  bane  of  her. 


April  Folly  279 

How  she  was  the  home  of  lies  and  flies,  the  grave  of 
reputation,  the  refuge  of  the  remittance  man  and  the 
bad  egg;  the  land  of  the  unexpected  pest,  but  never 
the  unexpected  blessing;  of  sunstroke  and  fever; 
scandals  and  broken  careers;  snobbery,  bobbery,  and 
highway  robbery.  How,  yet,  when  one  had  been 
away  from  her  for  a  little  while,  sometimes  for  a  few 
months  only,  one  forgot  all  these  things  and  remem- 
bered only  with  hunger  and  aching  the  pink-tipped  hills 
of  her,  the  crystal  air,  royal  sunsets  and  tender  dawns; 
the  unforgettable  friends  she  had  given,  the  exquisite 
reveries  her  wild  spaces  had  inspired;  the  valiant  men 
who  lie  buried  in  her  breast,  the  sweeping  rivers 
and  leagues  and  leagues  of  whispering  grasses.  How, 
suddenly,  the  nostalgia  for  the  burn  and  the  bite  of  her 
bitter  lips  seizes  upon  the  men  who  have  known  her 
too  long  and  too  well,  dragging  them  from  ease  and 
comfort  and  the  soft  cushions  of  life,  back  across  the 
seas  to  her  gaunt  and  arid  breast. 

"And  there  seems  to  be  some  kind  of  blessing  in  that 
old  Cross  held  over  us  as  we  come  trailing  back!" 

His  smile  was  scoffing  and  a  little  weary,  but  behind 
it  April  heard  longing  in  his  voice,  and  saw  the  search- 
ing of  his  eyes  towards  where  land  would  soon  appear. 
And  what  he  was  feeling  strangely  communicated 
itself  to  her.  The  subtle  hand  of  Africa  was  laid  upon 
her  heart,  and  she  trembled.  In  that  moment  she 
sickened  suddenly  of  her  false  position.  Why  was 
she  not  coming  to  this  watchful  land  frankly  and  with 
clean  hands,  instead  of  in  the  coils  of  a  foolish  pretence? 
She  looked  at  the  fine,  open  face  of  the  man  at  her  side 
and  was  ashamed.  An  impulse  seized  her  to  tell 
him  the  truth,  but  the  thought  of  Diana  drew  her  up 
sharply.  Had  she  the  right  to  disclose  the  secret 


280  April  Folly 

before  first  consulting  the  other  girl,  or  at  least  telling 
her  what  she  meant  to  do?  There  had  of  late  been 
something  about  Diana  that  called  for  this  considera- 
tion. She  had  grown  so  quiet  and  pale.  Her  gay 
laughter  was  seldom  heard,  and  though  she  still  sat 
about  with  Bellew  a  great  deal,  no  one  ever  heard 
them  talking  much.  They  seemed  to  revel  in  silence. 
It  was  not  difficult  to  divine  what  spell  was  upon 
them,  and  April  was  more  glad  than  she  could  tell. 

For  if  it  came  to  pass  that  Diana  should  get  some- 
thing out  of  this  masquerade,  something  beyond  mere 
frivolous  enjoyment,  then  the  means  would  have 
justified  the  end,  and  neither  would  have  cause  for 
reproach.  How  fitting,  too,  for  Diana  and  Bellew, 
both  of  the  same  world  and  social  position,  to  find 
each  other  in  such  a  disinterested  way.  Really,  it 
looked  as  if  everything  were  for  the  best  in  the  best 
of  all  possible  worlds.  It  was  only  when  Sarle's 
clear  gaze  was  upon  her  that  April's  soul  stirred  with  a 
sense  of  guilt  and  a  longing  to  discontinue  the  deceit, 
harmless  as  it  was.  His  simple,  candid  personality 
made  it  impossible  to  remain  with  him  and  not  be 
sincere.  A  very  panic  of  haste  seized  her  to  find 
Diana  and  arrange  some  plan  of  action.  Abruptly 
she  left  him,  and  though  dancing  had  begun  and  she 
saw  her  partner  bearing  down  on  her,  she  fled  in  the 
direction  of  the  music  saloon,  where  Diana  and  Bellew 
might  most  frequently  be  found.  But  they  were 
nowhere  in  sight,  and  their  dusky  and  palm-sheltered 
corner  was  in  possession  of  Mrs.  Stanislaw,  who 
instantly  pounced  on  April  with  a  request  for  her 
autograph.  Everyone  was  walking  about  with  birth- 
day and  autograph  books  that  night.  Others  were 
carrying  about  large  photographs  of  the  ship  and 


April  Folly  281 

begging  people  to  sign  their  names  upon  it,  as  a 
souvenir  of  the  voyage.  These  things  are  done  upon 
every  trip  to  the  Cape. 

While  April  stood  turning  the  pages  of  the  auto- 
graph album  and  wondering  what  name  to  put  down, 
she  got  one  of  the  worst  jolts  of  her  life. 

"I  have  found  out  two  very  interesting  things," 
said  Mrs.  Stanislaw,  in  her  soft  and  serpentine  manner. 
"The  woman  whose  children  Miss  Poole  is  going  to 
governess  at  the  Cape  is  Cora  Janis,  one  of  my  most 
intimate  friends.  And  .  .  ."  she  paused  dramatically. 
April's  fingers  still  fluttered  the  pages,  but  her  heart 
took  a  bound  and  then  stood  still. 

"How  very  interesting,"  she  stammered,  "and 
what  else?" 

"Captain  Bellew  is  a  married  man!" 


PART  II 

APRIL  closed  the  book  and  handed  it  back  without 
writing  any  thing. 

"  If  that  is  true,  I  really  do  not  see  what  it  has  to 
do  with  you — or  me,"  she  said  coldly. 

"Oh,  I  know  it  is  true,"  said  Mrs.  Stanislaw,  airily 
ignoring  the  rest  of  April's  remark.  "  I  had  it  from  a 
lady  who  is  travelling  second-class  because  she  has  a 
bevy  of  children.  She  knows  Mrs.  Bellew  quite 
well,  and,  curiously  enough,  is  a  friend  also  of  Cora 
Janis,  who  wrote  to  her  some  time  ago  asking  her  to 
look  out  for  Miss  Poole  on  the  voyage.  Naturally, 
Cora  thought  her  governess  would  also  be  travelling 
second."  Mrs.  Stanislaw  smiled  drily.  "She  little 
knows  our  April  Fool." 

The  girl's  fascinated  eyes  watched  the  line  of  her 
smile.  It  was  like  a  thin  curved  knife,  all  the  crueller 
for  being  artificially  reddened. 

"Why  should  you  have  such  a  down  on  her?" 

The  older  woman's  hard,  handsome  veyes  took  an 
expression  of  surprise. 

"A  down  on  her?  You  are  mistaken.  I  am  only 
sorry  that  a  girl  should  so  cheapen  herself  and  her 
sex  generally." 

April  could  have  shaken  her,  but  it  seemed  wiser 
to  try  propitiation  instead.  Her  own  career,  as  well 
as  Diana's  reputation,  was  at  stake. 

"After  all,  she  has  harmed  no  one  but  herself,  Mrs. 
282 


April  Folly  283 

Stanislaw.  As  for  Captain  Bellew,  I  daresay  he  told 
her  long  ago  about  his  being  married.  .  .  ." 

"If  you  think  so  you  think  worse  of  her  than  I 
do,"  said  Mrs.  Stanislaw  acidly,  "and  I  could  hardly 
suppose  that!" 

"I  do  not  think  badly  of  her  at  all,"  retorted 
April  indignantly.  "She  is  only  a  girl,  and  if  she 
has  been  misled — well,  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
situation  calls  for  a  little  human  charity  rather  than 
condemnation." 

"Of  course,"  said  the  soft-voiced  one.  "I  quite 
agree.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  condemn.  One  has, 
however,  certain  duties  to  one's  friends." 

April  saw  clearly  what  she  meant,  and  that  it  was 
as  useless  to  try  to  divert  her  from  her  intention 
as  to  argue  with  an  octopus.  The  very  fact  that  she 
knew  Mrs.  Janis  would  probably  put  an  extinguisher 
on  April's  career  as  a  governess.  Her  impersonation 
of  Lady  Diana  was  bound  to  come  out,  and  if  Mrs. 
Janis  was  cut  on  the  same  pattern  as  her  friend,  she 
would  be  truly  outraged  by  such  an  impertinence  in  a 
mere  governess.  There  was  little  to  do  but  keep  a 
tight  lip  and  hope  for  the  best.  For  the  moment, 
indeed,  her  troubles  were  swamped  by  a  flood  of  pity 
for  Diana.  She  felt  sure  that  Diana  was  in  love  with 
Bellew,  and  feared  that  he  had  not  told  her  the  truth. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  might  honourably  have  done 
so,  and  Diana  being  the  reckless  scatterbrain  she  was, 
still  chose  to  dally  on  the  primrose  path  of  danger. 
It  was  hard  to  know  what  to  do. 

On  the  main  deck  dancing  was  in  full  swing,  and 
the  first  sight  that  met  her  eyes  was  Diana  and  Bellew 
scampering  in  a  tango.  Diana  wore  a  satin  gown  of 
a  curious  blue  that  gleamed  and  shone  like  the  blue 


284  April  Folly 

light  of  sulphurous  flames,  and  as  she  danced  she 
trilled  a  little  French  song  that  was  often  on  her  lips: 

"Tout  le  mond 
Au  salon 

On  y  tan-gue,  on  y  tan-gue, 
Tout  le  mond 
Au  salon 
On  y  tan-gue,  tout  en  rang." 

It  was  a  parody  on  an  old  South  of  France  chanson, 
and  everyone  was  singing  it  in  Paris  that  year.  Some- 
one far  down  the  deck,  who  had  evidently  read  the 
original  in  Alphonse  Daudet's  Lettres  de  Mon  Moulin, 
took  up  the  refrain: 

"Sur  le  pont 
D 'Avignon 

On  y  dan-se,  on  y  dan-se, 
Sur  le  pont 
D 'Avignon 
On  y  dan-se,  tout  en  rond." 

Small  use  trying  to  stop  her  and  speak  serious 
things  to  her  in  that  mad  frolic.  April  herself  was 
whirled  into  the  pool  of  music  and  movement,  and 
did  not  emerge  until  the  band,  at  a  late  hour,  struck 
up  the  National  Anthem.  By  special  dispensation 
of  the  Captain,  dancing  had  been  prolonged  because 
it  was  the  last  ball  of  the  voyage.  The  next  two  nights 
were  to  be  respectively  devoted  to  a  bridge-drive  and  a 
grand  farewell  concert.  However,  only  a  score  or 
so  of  the  most  ardent  dancers  were  left  on  deck  when 
the  final  note  of  music  sounded  and  the  lights  went 
out  with  a  click.  Figures  became  wraith-like  in  the 
moonlight,  and  April  gave  a  sigh  as  her  partner's 
arm  fell  from  her  waist  and  they  drew  up  by  the 


April  Folly  285 

ship's  rail,  where  Vereker  Sarle  stood  watching  them 
and  smoking. 

"And  that's  the  end  of  the  story,"  said  she,  laughing 
a  little  ruefully.  Her  partner  went  away  to  get  her  a 
cold  drink,  and  she  half  expected  Sarle  to  reproach 
her  because  it  had  been  his  dance  and  she  had  pur- 
posely avoided  dancing  with  him.  But  he  only  said: 

"Africa  is  the  beginning  of  many  stories." 

She  shivered  a  little,  though  the  night  was  warm. 

"  I  am  beginning  to  be  afraid  of  her — this  Africa  of 
yours!" 

"No  need  for  you  to  be  afraid  anywhere,"  he 
smiled.  "There  will  always  be  those  who  will  stand 
between  you  and  fear." 

"How  little  you  know!"  she  said  abruptly.  "I 
haven't  a  friend  in  the  world." 

There  was  a  short  silence,  and  they  looked  straight 
at  each  other,  the  slim,  tall  girl  in  her  diaphanous 
tulles,  the  powerful,  innocent-eyed  man. 

"You  must  be  joking,"  he  began.  Then  he  saw 
the  trouble  in  her  eyes  and  her  quivering  mouth. 

"  But  even  in  jest,  never  say  that,  while  I  am  in  the 
world,"  he  added  gently.  She  was  so  grateful  for 
the  chivalrous  words  that  she  dared  not  speak  for 
fear  the  tears  should  rush  out  of  her  eyes.  Impul- 
sively she  put  out  her  hand,  and  his  brown,  firm  one 
closed  on  it,  and  held  it  very  close.  Then  he  carried 
it  to  his  lips.  She  heard  him  say  one  word,  very 
softly:  "Diana." 

At  that  she  tore  her  hand  from  his  and  sped  away 
swiftly  into  the  darkness.  Once  in  her  cabin  she 
iocked  the  door,  turned  out  the  lights,  and  flung  herself 
on  to  the  bed.  For  a  long  time  she  lay  there,  a 
crumpled  heap  of  tulle  and  misery,  weeping  because 


286  April  Folly 

life  was  a  cruel  brute  who  kept  her  gifts  for  the  rich 
and  wellborn  or  the  old  and  indifferent,  mockingly 
withholding  from  those  who  were  young  and  eager 
and  could  better  appreciate  them. 

"What  is  the  use  of  youth  and  good  looks  when  one 
is  poor  and  lonely?"  she  sobbed.  "They  only  mock 
one!  It  is  like  having  a  Paris  hat  put  on  your  head 
while  your  feet  are  bare  and  bleeding  and  your  stom- 
ach is  empty." 

She  wished  she  had  never  begun  this  miserable 
game  of  Diana  Vernilands,  never  tasted  the  power 
of  rank  and  place,  the  joy  of  jewels  and  pretty  clothes. 
She  wished  she  had  never  left  England,  never  seen 
Vereker  Sarle,  and,  above  all,  she  wished  she  were 
dead. 

It  was  about  two  in  the  morning  before  she  had 
finished  wishing  and  sobbing.  Youth  began  to  re- 
assert itself  then,  and  she  thought  of  what  a  sight  she 
would  be  in  the  morning,  with  tangled  hair  and 
swollen  eyes.  Languidly  at  last  she  rose.  The  tulle 
dress  was  ruined,  but  little  she  recked.  Rather  she 
felt  a  fierce  satisfaction  in  the  thought  that  it  was 
done  for,  and  Diana  could  never  wear  it. 

That  wretched  Diana!  ... 

But  when  her  flushed  face  was  bathed  and  her  hair 
brushed  out  she  thought  more  kindly  of  Diana, 
remembering,  that  she,  too,  was  in  trouble.  Well, 
tomorrow  there  would  have  to  be  a  great  clean-up 
of  all  these  miserable  pretences  and  deceits;  tonight, 
at  least,  she  would  try  and  sleep.  Her  hand  was  on 
the  switch  to  turn  out  the  lights  when  there  came  a 
knocking  at  the  door.  It  was  such  a  strange,  peremp- 
tory knocking — such  a  careless  outraging  of  the  small 
hours,  that  for  a  moment  she  stood  rooted  with  as- 


April  Folly  287 

tonishment  and  apprehension,  staring  at  herself  in 
the  mirror  that  composed  the  back  of  the  door. 

"Who  is  it?"  she  stammered  at  last. 

"The  Captain,"  said  a  stern  voice,  and  in  the  glass 
she  saw  her  cheeks  and  lips  become  pale.  What  on 
earth  could  be  wrong?  Was  the  ship  on  fire,  or 
wrecked?  Had  their  last  hour  come? 

"  I  am  sorry  to  bother  you,  but  will  you  please  open 
the  door  for  a  moment?" 

By  a  great  effort  she  composed  herself  and  did  as 
she  was  bid.  A  little  group  of  people  with  strained 
faces  and  staring  eyes  presented  themselves  behind 
the  Captain;  she  recognized  several  men,  the  steward- 
esses, and  Mrs.  Stanislaw;  while  in  the  shadows 
beyond  them  was  whispering  and  much  shuffling. 
The  whole  ship  seemed  to  be  afoot.  Captain  Carey 
gave  one  swift  look  round  the  cabin,  then  his  eyes 
rested  on  her  startled  face,  and  he  patted  her  arm 
gently  and  reassuringly. 

"Don't  be  alarmed,  my  dear  Lady  Diana,"  he 
said,  in  his  tender,  Irish  voice,  from  which  all  sternness 
had  vanished.  "It  is  only  that  we  are  looking  for 
Miss  Poole,  and  we  thought  that  possibly  she  might  be 
in  here  with  you." 

"Miss  Poole!" 

The  girl's  face  stiffened  and  blanched.  She  put 
out  a  hand  to  support  herself  against  the  dressing- 
table.  The  Captain  signed  to  a  stewardess,  and  the 
little  crowd  moved  away.  There  was  loud  knocking 
on  another  door. 

"Why  are  they  searching?  .  .  ." 

The  stewardess  patted  her  arm,  even  as  the  Captain 
had  done,  but  being  a  simple  woman,  she  spoke 
simply,  and  without  waste  of  words. 


288  April  Folly 

"There  is  a  fear  that  she  is  not  on  the  ship." 
"Not  on  the  ship!"  whispered  April.     "But  where 
else  could  she  be?     What  other  place?  .  .  ." 

Then  she  understood.  There  was  no  other  place. 
.  .  .  Her  knees  trembled,  and  the  stewardess  sup- 
ported her  to  the  sofa.  She  sat  down  with  chattering 
teeth,  smitten  by  a  great  and  bitter  cold.  Diana — 
the  sea  .  .  .  warm,  merry,  gay  Diana  in  the  cold 
sea! 

"  I  don't  believe  it.  It  can't  be  true!" 
"Mrs.  Stanislaw  had  reason  to  think  that  she 
intended  to  commit  suicide  tonight  .  .  .  and  when 
she  did  not  come  to  bed  by  two  o'clock,  she  thought 
it  her  duty  to  inform  the  Captain,  who  is,  of  course, 
bound  to  search  the  ship." 

"It  can't  be  true.  ...  I  don't  believe  it,"  re- 
peated April  mechanically;  but  all  the  time  her  heart 
was  in  terror,  remembering  Diana's  pale  looks  and 
the  news  she  had  heard  tonight  of  Bellew's  marriage. 
Had  he  told  Diana,  then  .  .  .  and  was  this  the  result? 
All  at  once  it  became  impossible  to  sit  still  any  longer. 
She  must  know  the  truth.  She  jumped  up,  searched 
feverishly  for  a  cloak  to  put  on,  and  pulling  the 
stewardess  with  her,  hurried  on  deck.  But  after  a 
few  steps  they  came  to  a  standstill,  for  the  crowd  fol- 
lowing the  Captain  had  suddenly  and  curiously  broken 
up  and  separated  before  the  door  of  one  of  the  deck 
cabins.  Men  and  women  who  a  moment  before  had 
been  clustering  and  whispering  agitatedly  together 
were  now  hurrying  past,  each  apparently  intent  on 
reaching  their  own  cabins  in  the  quickest  time  possible. 
For  one  horrible  moment  April  thought  it  was  some 
tragic  discovery  that  was  scattering  them,  but  a 
moment  later  she  realized  that  tragedy  had  gone 


April  Folly  289 

from  the  air.  The  deck  was  flooded  with  electric 
light,  and  people's  faces  could  plainly  be  seen.  Many 
expressions  were  written  there,  but  none  of  pity  or 
sorrow.  The  men,  for  the  most  part,  looked  embar- 
rassed; the  women's  expressions  varied  from  frozen 
hauteur  to  scornful  rage.  They  behaved  like  people 
who  had  been  bitterly  wronged  by  some  lying  tale. 
The  one  predominating  emotion  shared  by  all  seemed 
to  be  an  intense  desire  to  escape  from  the  scene.  In 
less  than  two  minutes  not  a  soul  was  left  on  the  deck 
save  the  dazed  and  astounded  April.  She  remained, 
wondering  what  on  earth  it  was  all  about;  why  with- 
out visible  reason  the  search  had  come  to  such  a 
sudden  end,  and  what  could  be  the  meaning  of  the 
phrase  Mrs.  Stanislaw  had  flung  at  her  as  she  passed. 

"The  April  fool  has  surpassed  herself!" 

A  sickening  apprehension  crept  over  the  girl.  That 
Diana  was  not  overboard  seemed  certain;  but  what 
new  folly  had  she  committed?  As  if  in  answer  to 
the  gloomy  query,  the  lights  were  once  more  switched 
out,  and  a  strange  vapoury  greyness  took  possession 
of  the  ship.  It  was  that  still  small  hour  when  the 
yellowing  East  adds  pallor  to  the  night  without  dis- 
persing its  darkness. 

Then  two  things  happened.  The  door  of  that 
cabin  before  which  the  crowd  had  so  mysteriously 
disintegrated  opened  very  softly,  and  through  the 
aperture  stole  forth  a  woman's  figure.  .  .  .  For  a 
swift  moment  the  light  from  within  rested  on  yellow 
hair  and  gleaming  blue  satin;  then  the  door  closed 
and  the  figure  became  part  of  the  stealing  dimness 
which  was  neither  night  nor  morning.  But  April, 
who  stood  in  her  path,  had  seen  and  recognized. 

"Diana!"  she  cried. 


290  April  Folly 

The  other  girl  stood  stock  still.  Her  face  showed 
ghostly  in  the  greyness.  She  peered  at  April,  clutch- 
ing at  her  arm  and  whispering: 

"For  God's  sake  take  me  to  your  cabin!" 

They  crept  down  the  deck  like  a  pair  of  thieves, 
hardly  breathing  till  they  were  behind  the  locked 
door.  Without  looking  at  her,  April  saw  that  there 
was  trouble  to  meet.  She  remembered  the  faces  of 
the  other  women,  and  the  instinct  to  protect  a  fellow- 
creature  against  the  mob  rose  in  her. 

"Tell  me  what  it  is.     I'll  help  you  fight  it  out." 

But  Diana  had  flung  herself  down  with  a  defiant 
air  on  the  sofa. 

"  Don't  you  know?  Weren't  you  one  of  the  hounds 
on  my  track?"  she  demanded,  in  a  high-pitched  whis- 
per. April  looked  at  her  steadily. 

"The  whole  thing  is  an  absolute  mystery  to  me. 
I  know  nothing  except  that  first  you  were  missing, 
and  then  apparently  they  found  you " 

"Yes;  in  Geoffrey  Bellew's  cabin!" 

The  April  fool  had,  indeed,  surpassed  herself! 
April  blenched,  but  she  took  the  blow  standing. 
After  all,  she  had  been  as  great  a  fool  as  the  girl 
sitting  there,  for  she,  too,  had  handed  over  her  good 
name  into  the  careless  hands  of  another;  had  sold  her 
reputation  for  a  song — a  song  that  had  lasted  seven- 
teen days,  but  seemed  now  in  the  act  of  becoming 
a  dirge. 

"Do  you  mind  telling  me  what  happened,  so  that 
I  know  exactly  where  we  stand  and  what  there  is  to 
be  done." 

Diana  laughed. 

"There  is  nothing  to  be  done." 

April  forgave  her  the  laugh,  because  it  was  not 


April  Folly  291 

composed  of  merriment  nor  any  elements  of  joyous- 
ness. 

"  I  went  to  Geoffrey's  cabin  because  we  had  things 
to  talk  over,  and  it  seemed  the  only  place  where  we 
could  get  away  from  prying  eyes.  Somehow  I  stayed 
on  and  on,  not  realizing  it  was  so  late  .  .  .  and  then, 
and  then  .  .  ."  She  began  to  stammer;  defiance  left 
her  ..."  then,  that  awful  knocking  .  .  .  those  faces 
staring  in!  .  .  .all  those  brutes  of  women!"  She 
covered  her  eyes  with  her  hands  and  broke  down  ut- 
terly. "My  God!  I  am  done  for!" 

April  thought  so,  too.  It  seemed  to  her  they  were 
both  done  for,  but  there  was  not  much  help  in  saying 
so.  Diana's  confession  horrified  her,  and  she  saw 
that  her  own  future  at  the  Cape  was  knocked  as  flat  as 
a  house  of  cards  that  is  demolished  by  the  wayward 
hand  of  a  child.  Yet  at  that  moment  her  principal 
feeling  was  one  of  compassion  for  the  girl  on  the  sofa, 
who  alternately  laughed  and  covered  her  eyes,  and 
now  with  a  pitiful  attempt  at  bravado  was  attempting 
to  light  a  cigarette,  with  hands  that  shook  like  aspen 
leaves. 

"  I  suppose  it  was  that  cat  Stanislaw  who  started 
the  search  for  me?" 

"  It  appears  that  she  got  into  a  panic  when  you  did 
not  return  to  your  cabin,  and  went  and  told  the 
Captain  she  feared  you  were  overboard." 

"The  she-fiend!  Much  she  cared  if  I  was  at  the 
bottom  of  the  sea!  She  had  pried  out  where  I  was, 
and  that  was  her  subtle  way  of  advertising  it  to  the 
whole  ship." 

"  I  believe  you  are  right, "  said  April  slowly, 
"  though  it  is  hard  to  understand  how  any  one  could 
do  a  thing  so  studiedly  cruel." 


292  April  Folly 

"Cruel!  She  is  a  fiend,  I  tell  you,"  cried  Diana. 
"One  of  those  women  who  have  nothing  left  in  their 
natures  but  hatred  for  those  who  are  still  young  and 
pretty.  I  realized  long  ago  that  she  would  ruin 
my  reputation  if  she  could,  but  I  did  not  give  her  credit 
for  so  much  cleverness." 

"Well,  at  any  rate,  she  is  not  so  clever  as  she 
thinks,"  said  April  drily.  "For  she  hasn't  ruined 
your  reputation,  after  all;  only  mine." 

Diana  started;  terror  came  into  her  eyes. 

"My  God,  April!  You  don't  mean  to  give  me 
away?" 

April  knew  very  well  what  she  meant  to  do.  She 
had  tasted  of  "the  triumph  and  the  roses  and  the 
wine,"  and  the  bill  had  been  presented.  Even  though 
it  left  her  bankrupt  and  disgraced,  she  was  going  to 
honour  that  bill;  but  she  could  not  resist  finding  out 
what  point  of  view  was  held  by  Diana  as  to  similar 
obligations. 

"You  think,  then,  it  is  my  name  that  should 
be  left  with  the  smirch  on  it?"  she  asked  dispassion- 
ately. 

Diana  grew  crimson  and  then  very  pale. 

"The  scandal  ..."  she  stammered;  "my  people 
.  .  .  you  don't  know  what  it  would  mean  to  have  such 
a  story  attached  to  me." 

"It  would  be  better  to  have  it  attached  to  me,  of 
course,"  April  agreed,  with  an  irony  that  was  entirely 
wasted  on  Diana. 

"You  see  that,  don't  you?"  she  said  eagerly. 
"After  all,  nobody  knows  your  name,  and  it  will  soon 
be  forgotten.  But  mine — 

April  could  only  smile.  She  saw  that  pity  was 
entirely  wasted  here.  Diana  was  so  eminently  able 


April  Folly  293 

to  look  after  herself  when  it  came  to  the  matter  of 
self-preservation. 

"And  it  will  only  be  for  another  couple  of  days. 
After  that  we  shall  never  see  Mrs.  Stanislaw  or  any  of 
this  rotten  crew  of  women  again." 

"You  are  an  optimist,"  was  April's  only  comment. 

"After  all,  it  is  I  who  will  have  to  bear  the  brunt 
of  their  insolence  tomorrow,  whatever  name  I  go  un- 
der," complained  Diana. 

"I'm  afraid  I  cannot  give  you  my  face  as  well  as 
my  name  to  help  you  bear  it,"  said  April  drily. 
Unexpectedly  the  retort  pierced,  for  Diana  suddenly 
burst  into  tears. 

"  I  know  you  think  me  a  beast.  But  I  really  am 
thinking  more  of  my  father  than  of  myself.  He  is 
terribly  proud.  It  would  break  his  heart  to  hear 
this  story  of  me  being  found  in  a  man's  cabin.  Oh! 
How  could  I  have  done  such  an  awful  thing!  You 
think  I  don't  care,  but  I  can  tell  you  I  could  simply 
die  of  shame." 

April  was  softened  once  more. 

"Don't  cry,  Diana,  and  don't  worry  any  further. 
Of  course,  your  name  shall  never  come  out.  That  is 
quite  settled.  Come,  now,  and  let  me  help  you  into 
bed.  You  had  far  better  stay  here  than  face  that 
tigress  Stanislaw  in  her  den." 

Nevertheless,  when  she  had  safely  tucked  the  still 
weeping  and  collapsed  Diana  into  her  berth,  she 
thought  it  advisable  to  make  an  excursion  herself  to 
the  den  of  the  tigress,  ostensibly  to  fetch  Diana's 
night-things;  in  reality  to  let  her  know  where  Diana 
was  spending  the  night,  and  that  the  girl  had  one 
woman  friend  at  least  to  stand  by  her.  Even  as  she 
expected,  Mrs.  Stanislaw  was  awake  and  lying  in 


294  April  Folly 

wait,  ready  to  spring.  It  must  have  been  a  disagree- 
able surprise  to  see  April  instead  of  the  victim.  The 
former's  manner  was  all  suavity. 

"  I  am  sorry  to  disturb  you,  but  I  have  come  for 
Miss  Poole's  things.  She  is  not  at  all  well,  and  I 
have  persuaded  her  to  spend  the  night  with  me." 
Tranquilly  she  began  to  collect  night-wear,  slippers, 
hair  and  tooth  brushes.  The  tigress,  being  thoroughly 
taken  back,  could  do  nothing  for  the  moment  but 
breathe  heavily  and  glare.  April,  with  the  wisdom 
of  the  serpent,  made  haste  to  escape  before  the  feline 
creature  regained  the  use  of  claw  and  fang. 

But  there  were  worse  things  to  face  in  the  morning. 
Even  though  Diana  postponed  the  evil  hour  by  pre- 
tending she  was  ill  and  having  her  breakfast  in  bed, 
she  could  not  stay  in  the  cabin  for  ever.  Once  the 
first  days  of  seasickness  are  over  there  is  a  rule  against 
people  stopping  in  their  berths  all  day  except  under 
doctor's  orders,  and  the  stewardesses  are  very  rigid  in 
enforcing  this.  Besides,  the  Captain  and  first  officer 
inspect  cabins  between  ten  and  eleven  A.M.,  and  Diana 
had  no  particular  yearning  to  see  them  again  just 
then. 

April  went  down  to  breakfast  as  usual,  outwardly 
composed,  but  with  an  eye  secretly  alert  to  spy  out 
the  land.  It  did  not  take  her  long  to  discover  that 
all  the  women  were  in  arms,  with  their  stabbing  knives 
ready  for  action.  Mrs.  Stanislaw  had  evidently  not 
been  idle,  and  the  name  of  "Lady  Diana"  was  already 
bracketed  with  that  of  the  April  Fool.  To  send  her 
entirely  to  Coventry  was  rather  too  drastic  treatment 
for  an  earl's  daughter,  but  many  a  cold  glance  came 
her  way. 

"Birds  of  a  feather  nest  together,"  was  one  of  the 


April  Folly  295 

tart  observations  that  fell  upon  her  ears  as  she  passed 
a  group  of  women  who  only  yesterday  were  fawning 
upon  her.  Plainly  it  was  considered  a  fresh  outrage 
upon  womanhood  that  she  should  have  given  the 
protection  of  her  name  and  cabin  to  the  heroine  of 
last  night's  scandal. 

She  did  not  mind  very  much.  With  a  clear  con- 
science on  this  count  at  least,  she  was  able  to  meet 
their  displeasure  imperturbably.  But  she  could  not 
help  feeling  sorry  for  the  real  Diana. 

That  unfortunate  creature,  on  venturing  forth  to 
her  own  cabin,  was  met  by  the  sight  of  Mrs.  Stanislaw 
dragging  all  her  possessions  into  the  corridor.  It 
appeared  that  even  for  the  few  remaining  days  at 
sea  the  tigress  could  not  lie  down  with  the  black 
sheep!  A  sweet  and  sympathetic  soul,  who  also 
lived  down  the  same  alley  and  had  the  same  horror  of 
contaminating  influence,  had  therefore  offered  to  take 
her  in.  The  picturesque  incident  was  being  witnessed 
and  silently  approved  by  women  in  the  neighbouring 
cabins,  who,  curiously  enough,  all  happened  to  be 
busy  packing  with  their  doors  open,  so  as  not  to  miss 
anything. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  most  of  these  people 
had  been  persistently  flouted,  even  insulted,  by  Diana 
during  the  voyage.  Some  of  them,  matrons  with 
daughters  of  their  own,  were  really  shocked  by  the 
"bad  example"  her  behaviour  had  established.  So 
it  was  perhaps  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  a  sort  of 
combined  sniff  of  holiness  and  self-righteousness  went 
up  to  Heaven  when  the  culprit  came  barging  down  the 
passage,  nose  in  air,  and  a  defiant  flush  upon  her 
cheek.  Stumbling  over  the  trunks  and  piles  of 
clothes  which  littered  the  place,  she  managed  to  gain 


296  April  Folly 

her  room,  and  close  the  door  behind  her  with  a  re- 
sounding bang  to  show  how  little  she  cared  about  any 
of  them.  But  it  was  immediately  reopened  by  Mrs. 
Stanislaw,  come  to  fetch  more  of  her  things,  and  not 
averse  to  talking  as  long  as  possible  over  the  business. 
By  continually  going  backwards  and  forwards  for 
small  armfuls  of  articles,  and  always  leaving  the  door 
open,  she  managed  to  deprive  Diana  of  all  privacy. 
The  latter  bore  with  it  for  as  long  as  her  patience 
lasted,  which  was  about  five  minutes.  Then  she 
flung  out  of  the  room,  hoping  to  find  refuge  elsewhere. 
But  wherever  she  went  it  was  the  same.  In  the 
writing-room  everyone  bent  suddenly  over  their 
blotting-pads,  and  the  balmy  morning  air  took  on  an 
arctic  chill.  Music  and  conversation  faded  away 
when  she  sauntered  into  the  music  saloon.  On 
deck  even  the  sailors  looked  at  her  curiously.  The 
story  of  her  indiscretion  had  penetrated  to  every 
corner  of  the  vessel.  The  miserable  girl  fetched  a 
book  from  the  library  and  tried  to  hide  herself  behind 
it,  seated  in  her  deck-chair.  She  soon  had  that  side 
of  the  ship  to  herself. 

Later,  it  was  discovered  that  a  lady  with  whom  she 
was  engaged  to  play  off  a  final  in  deck  quoits  had 
"scratched."  The  same  thing  happened  with  regard 
to  the  bridge-drive.  The  girl  who  was  cast  as  her 
opponent  in  the  opening  round  publicly  withdrew 
her  name  from  the  competition.  There  it  was,  up  on 
the  games  notice-board — a  girl's  name  with  a  black 
pencil  mark  drawn  through  it.  All  who  ran  might 
read,  and  a  good  many  did  run  to  read.  Clearly  the 
April  Fool  had  become  the  object  of  the  most  unani- 
mous taboo  ever  set  in  motion  on  a  ship.  Her  name 
was  mud.  Even  the  men  did  not  rally  to  her  aid, 


April  Folly  297 

though  she  had  been  popular  enough  with  them 
before.  There  are  few  men  who  will  not  crumple 
up  before  a  phalanx  of  women  with  daggers  in  their 
hands  and  feathers  in  their  hair;  even  as  the  big-game 
hunter  thinks  it  no  shame  to  flee  before  a  horde  of 
singing  ants!  The  only  two  who  behaved  with  natural 
decency  were  Bellew  and  Sarle.  The  latter  appeared 
utterly  unconscious  of  anything  unusual  when  he 
came  and  sat  down  by  the  two  girls.  There  might 
have  been  a  little  more  deference  in  his  manner  to 
Diana;  that  was  all.  As  for  Bellew,  he  had  not  been 
trained  in  the  diplomatic  service  for  nothing.  He 
possessed  to  a  marked  degree  the  consummate  sang- 
froid that  is  a  natural  attribute  of  aides-de-camp. 
Nothing  could  have  been  more  cool  than  his  manner 
when  he  joined  the  group  and  suggested  a  game  of 
quoits.  The  whole  world  of  the  ship  had  its  ears 
cocked  to  listen  to  these  two,  and  was  watching 
them  acutely — with  eyes  that  gazed  at  the  horizon. 
If  only  Diana  could  have  comported  herelf  in  a 
rational  manner  the  situation  might  at  least  have 
been  decently  salvaged,  if  not  carried  with  triumph. 
But  she  had  lost  her  nerve.  Intrepid  throughout 
the  voyage  in  committing  every  possible  folly,  now, 
when  a  little  real  courage  was  needed,  she  crumpled. 
The  fierce  white  light  of  public  disapproval  withered 
her.  It  was  pitiful  to  see  the  way  she  went  to 
pieces — to  hear  her  hysterical  laughter  and  foolish 
remarks. 

"  For  goodness'  sake  have  the  courage  of  your  sins ! 
Show  some  blood!"  was  the  rebuke  April  longed  to 
administer  together  with  a  sound  shaking.  But 
anger  was  futile,  and  rebuke  out  of  the  question.  The 
only  wise  thing  was  to  retreat  in  as  good  order  as 


298  April  Folly 

possible  to  the  cabin  of  which  Diana  now  enjoyed  sole 
possession,  and  there  reconsider  the  position. 

"I  can't  bear  it,"  she  whimpered  desperately.  "I 
can't  stand  another  two  days  of  it.  I  tell  you  I  shall 
go  mad." 

"Nonsense!"  April  responded,  with  a  cheerfulness 
that  found  no  echo  in  her  heart.  "You  must  take 
a  pull  on  yourself,  Diana.  As  you  said  last  night, 
you  owe  these  women  nothing,  and  will  probably 
never  see  them  again." 

But  Diana's  lay  had  changed  tune. 

"Oh!  Won't  I?  ...  I  feel  they  will  haunt  me 
all  my  days.  What  is  that  couplet? — 

"He  who  hath  a  thousand  friends  hath  not  a  friend  to  spare; 
But  he  who  hath  one  enemy  shall  meet  him  everywhere." 

A  man  said  to  me  yesterday  that  what  is  done  on  the 
voyage  to  the  Cape  is  known  at  Cairo  within  a  week 
if  it  is  sufficiently  scandalous."  She  wept. 

"A  blue  look-out  for  me!"  thought  her  listener, 
dismally  imagining  the  name  of  April  Poole  flashing 
from  one  end  of  the  great  continent  to  another.  Not 
only  at  the  Cape  would  she  be  debarred  from  earning 
her  living!  This  impression  was  confirmed  by  some 
of  the  remarks  women  made  to  her  later  in  the  day. 
They  were  all  quite  willing  to  be  friendly  as  long  as 
she  was  not  in  the  company  of  the  black  sheep. 

"She  might  just  as  well  take  ship  back  to  England," 
one  said.  "No  one  will  employ  her  as  a  governess 
after  this.  The  story  will  be  all  over  Cape  Town 
within  an  hour  of  our  arrival." 

"You  can't  live  these  things  down  in  Africa,"  said 
another.  "Of  course,  she  might  get  a  job  up-country, 


April  Folly  299 

where  people  are  not  particular  and  only  want  a  kind 
of  servant  to  look  after  their  children." 

It  was  no  use  April  protesting  against  the  cruelty  of 
condemning  a  girl  for  ever  because  of  one  indiscretion. 
Her  listeners  only  looked  at  her  suspiciously.  One 
old  Englishwoman,  who  had  lived  many  years  in 
South  Africa,  put  the  case  more  cynically  than  kindly: 

"Girls  who  earn  their  living  are  not  allowed  the 
luxury  of  indiscretion.  If  it  had  been  you,  now " 

"Do  you  mean  that  I  should  have  been  forgiven 
by  reason  of  my  position?" 

"My  dear,"  was  the  dry  reply,  "it  is  the  same  old 
snobbish  world  wherever  you  go.  What  constitutes 
a  crime  in  one  strata  of  society  is  only  eccentricity  in 
another." 

April  communicated  the  gist  of  this  worldly  wisdom 
to  Diana,  half  hoping  that  it  might  give  the  latter 
courage  to  disclose  herself  and  perhaps  clear  them 
both  of  any  worse  indictment  than  upon  the  count 
of  foolishness.  But  it  was  a  futile  hope,  and  nothing 
came  of  it  except  more  tears  and  another  wild  appeal 
not  to  be  "given  away."  All  sense  of  justice  had 
left  Diana,  or  been  swamped  by  the  newly-born  fear 
for  her  family's  honour. 

Thus  the  miserable  day  wore  to  its  close.  A 
steward,  no  doubt  heavily  subsidized,  spent  most  of 
the  afternoon  carrying  notes  backwards  and  forwards 
between  Diana  and  Bellew.  April  stayed  in  her 
cabin  as  much  as  possible,  and  for  the  rest  was 
careful  to  be  always  near  other  people,  so  that  Sarle 
would  find  no  opportunity  of  giving  expression  to  the 
things  to  be  seen  in  his  eyes.  It  was  a  precarious 
joy  to  read  those  sweet  things,  but  she  dared  not  let 
him  utter  them.  For  when  the  debacle  came  at  Cape 


300  April  Folly 

Town,  he  must  have  nothing  to  regret.  The  moment 
they  were  quit  of  the  ship  and  its  scandal  she  would  be 
relieved  of  her  promise  to  Diana  and  able  to  tell  him 
the  truth.  If  he  had  spoken  no  word  of  love  to  her 
before  then  he  would  be  free  as  air  to  go  his  way 
without  speaking  one,  while  she  just  slipped  away  and 
disappeared,  to  be  seen  of  him  no  more.  But  if  he 

chose  not  to  go  his  ways ?     If  when  he  heard  all 

he  still  wished  to  stay?  Ah!  what  a  sweet,  perilous 
thought  was  that!  She  dared  not  dwell  on  it,  and 
yet  if  she  banished  it  utterly  from  her  mind  all  the 
thrill  went  out  of  life,  and  every  throb  of  the  engine 
bringing  them  nearer  land  seemed  a  beat  of  her  heart 
soon  to  be  silenced  for  ever. 

Evening  came  at  last — an  evening  of  dinner  parties 
and  best  frocks,  with  an  early  commencement  of  the 
bridge-drive  afterwards.  Sarle,  several  days  before, 
had  arranged  to  have  a  special  small  table  for  four 
with  a  special  dinner,  asking  April  to  be  his  hostess 
and  choose  the  other  two  guests.  She,  with  an 
instinct  that  they  would  be  left  out  in  the  cold  by 
everyone  else,  had  chosen  Diana  and  Bellew.  Now, 
at  the  last  moment,  Diana  shirked  the  ordeal,  and 
from  behind  her  locked  door  announced  in  muffled 
tones  that  she  had  a  headache  and  was  going  to  bed. 
So  April  sent  a  message  to  Sarle,  giving  him  the 
chance  of  filling  the  gap  if  he  so  wished.  When  she 
went  down  she  found  him  waiting  for  her  with  Bellew 
and  Dick  Nichols,  the  old  poker-playing,  battle- 
scarred  warrior  of  the  smoke-room,  whose  acquaint- 
ance she  was  delighted  to  make.  He  was  a  little  bit 
shy  at  first  at  sitting  down  in  his  worn  though  spotless 
white-duck  slacks  opposite  the  beautiful  girl  in  black 
and  silver,  with  straps  of  amethysts  across  her  satiny 


April  Folly  301 

shoulders.  But  she  had  that  gift  which  is  born  rather 
than  acquired  of  setting  people  at  their  ease,  and  she 
wanted  to  get  the  liking  of  this  man  who  was  Sarle's 
friend.  So  she  beguiled  him  by  the  blue  of  her  eyes 
and  the  eager  interest  of  her  smile,  and  he  opened  up 
like  a  book  of  strange  stories  and  pictures  under  the 
hand  of  a  child.  Listening  to  the  talk,  she  was  trans- 
ported to  that  strange  region  of  bush  and  spaces  that 
is  far  from  being  enchanted  land  and  yet  casts  an 
everlasting  spell.  She  heard  lions  roar  and  the 
shuffling  steps  of  oxen  plodding  through  dust;  felt 
the  brazen  glare  of  the  sun  against  her  eyes;  saw  the 
rain  swishing  down  on  grass  that  grew  taller  than  a 
man's  head. 

She  remembered  a  verse  of  Percival  Gibbon's 
about  the  veld: 

There's  a  balm  for  crippled  spirits 

In  the  open  view 
Running  from  your  very  footsteps 

Out  into  the  blue, 
Like  a  wagon  track  to  heaven 

Straight  'twixt  God  and  you. 

Both  Sarle  and  Nichols  knew  that  track,  she  was 
sure.  They  were  oddly  alike,  these  two  veld  men, 
with  their  gentle  ways,  their  brown  muscular  hands, 
and  their  eyes  full  of  distance.  A  very  different 
type  to  the  sleek  and  handsome  Bellew,  who  sat  so 
composed  under  the  many  blighting  glances  cast  his 
way. 

"They  know  about  the  guile  of  creatures,  but  he 
has  made  an  art  of  beguiling  human  beings,"  thought 
April,  and  all  the  vexation  of  the  day  came  surging 
over  her,  almost  spoiling  her  dinner  and  the  pleasure 


302  April  Folly 

of  the  evening.  Almost — not  quite!  When  you  are 
"young  and  very  sweet,  with  the  jasmine  in  your  hair/' 
and  have  only  to  raise  your  eyes  to  see  desire  of  you 
sitting  unashamed  in  the  eyes  of  the  man  you  love, 
nothing  can  quite  spoil  your  gladness  of  living.  All 
the  same,  she  stuck  to  the  card-room  the  whole 
evening,  and  her  resolution  to  give  Sarle  no  chance 
of  saying  anything  he  might  regret.  He  must  have 
realized  it  after  a  time,  when  she  had  once  or  twice 
eluded  his  little  plots  to  get  her  on  deck,  but  he  gave 
no  sign.  He  was  a  hunter,  and  could  bide  his  time 
with  patience  and  serenity. 

It  was  not  in  her  plan  that  when  they  parted  it 
should  be  just  where  the  shadows  of  a  funnel  fell,  nor 
that  he  should  leave  a  swift  kiss,  in  the  palm  of  the 
hand  she  tendered  him  in  bidding  good-night;  yet 
both  of  these  things  came  to  pass. 


The  stewardess  who  brought  her  an  early  cup  of 
tea  handed  her  a  letter  with  the  remark: 

"It  was  under  your  door,  m'lady.  And  please 
would  you  like  your  big  trunks  from  the  hold  brought 
here,  or  will  you  pack  in  the  baggage-room?" 

"Oh,  here,  I  think,  stewardess.  It  will  be  much 
more  convenient." 

"Of  course  it  will, "  agreed  the  good  woman.  "  But, 
there!  how  the  baggage  men  do  grumble  at  having  to 
lug  up  big  trunks  like  yours  and  Mr.  Bellew's!" 

"I  am  very  sorry,"  said  April  "but  I'm  afraid  I 
can't  help  it."  She  had  reflected  swiftly  that  as  she 
and  Diana  had  so  many  possessions  to  exchange  before 
packing,  it  could  only  be  done  in  the  privacy  of  her 


April  Folly  303 

cabin.  She  was  very  tired  after  a  "white  night" 
all  too  crowded  with  the  black  butterflies  of  unhappy 
thought,  and  when  she  looked  at  the  superscription  on 
the  envelope  and  saw  that  it  was  in  Diana's  writing 
she  sighed.  All  the  worries  of  the  coming  day  rose 
up  before  her  like  a  menacing  wall  with  broken  glass 
on  the  top. 

"  Blow  Diana!  I  wish  she  were  at  the  bottom  of  the 
sea, "  she  said  to  herself,  with  the  irritability  born  of  a 
bad  night. 

Leaning  on  her  elbow,  she  sipped  at  the  fragrant  tea 
and  reflected  sorrowfully  on  what  a  happy  creature 
she  would  have  been  that  morning  if  she  had  never 
met  Diana  Vernilands  and  entered  into  the  mad  plan 
of  exchanging  identities!  What  a  clear  and  straight 
road  would  have  lain  before  her!  .  .  .  with  the  man 
whose  kiss  still  burnt  the  palm  of  her  hand  waiting 
for  her  at  the  end  of  it!  But  instead — what?  She 
sighed  again  and  tears  came  into  her  eyes  as  she  lay 
back  on  the  pillows  and  tore  open  the  envelope. 
Then  suddenly  her  body  lying  there  so  soft  and  deli- 
cate in  the  luxurious  berth  stiffened  with  horror. 
The  tears  froze  in  her  eyes.  The  letter  at  which  she 
was  staring  was  composed  of  two  loose  and  separate 
pages,  on  the  first  of  which  was  scrawled  a  couple  of 
brief  sentences  signed  by  a  name: 

"  I  cannot  bear  it  any  longer.  I  am  going  to  end  my 
troubles  in  the  sea. 

"  APRIL  POOLE." 

Mechanically  her  clutch  relaxed  on  this  terrible  first 
page,  and  she  turned  to  the  second.  It  was  headed: 
"Absolutely  private  and  confidential,  to  be  destroyed 


304  April  Folly 

immediately  after  reading,"  and  the  words  heavily 
underscored;  then  came  wild  phrases  meant  for  April's 
private  eyes  alone. 

"  I  am  leaving  you  to  face  it  all.  For  God's  sake 
forgive  me  and  keep  your  promise.  Never  let  any  one 
on  the  ship  or  in  Africa  know  the  truth.  Spare  my 
poor  father  the  agony  of  having  his  name  dragged  in 
the  dust  as  well  as  losing  his  daughter.  Do  not  do 
anything  except  under  the  counsel  of  the  other  person 
on  this  ship  who  knows  the  truth  and  who  will  advise 
you  the  exact  course  to  take.  But  do  not  approach 
him  in  any  way  or  speak  of  this  to  him  until  all  the 
misery  and  excitement  of  my  suicide  is  over.  I  have 
written  to  him,  too,  and  he  will  advise  you  at  the  right 
time,  but  to  drag  him  into  this  would  only  ruin  his 
career,  and  earn  my  curse  for  ever.  I  trust  you  utterly 
in  all  this.  Oh,  April,  do  not  betray  my  trust!  Do 
not  fail  me!  I  beg  and  implore  you  with  my  last 
breath  to  do  as  I  ask.  Go  on  using  my  name,  and 
money,  and  everything  belonging  to  me  until  the 
moment  that  he  advises  you  to  either  write  my  father 
the  truth  or  return  to  England  and  break  it  to  him 
personally.  If  he  hears  it  in  any  other  way  it  will 
kill  him,  and  his  blood  be  on  your  soul  as  well  as  mine. 
I  pray,  I  beseech,  I  implore  you,  be  faithful  to  your 
unhappy  friend, 

-  DIAWA." 

It  took  a  long  time  for  April's  stricken  mind  to 
absorb  the  meaning  of  it  all.  Over  and  over  she  read 
the  blurred  tear-blistered  sentences,  sometimes  weep- 
ing, sometimes  painfully  muttering  them  aloud  to 
herself.  When  she  had  finished  at  last,  her  course 


April  Folly  305 

was  set,  her  mind  made  up.  She  knew  the  letter  by 
heart,  and  sitting  up  in  bed,  white  as  a  ghost,  she 
slowly  destroyed  it  into  minutest  atoms,  putting  them 
into  a  little  purse  that  lay  in  the  rack  beside  her. 
Then  she  rang  the  bell.  To  the  stewardess  who  came 
she  said  calmly,  but  with  pallid  lips: 

"  If  Miss  Poole  is  in  her  cabin,  ask  her  to  come  to 
me." 

Then  she  whipped  out  of  bed,  flung  on  a  wrapper, 
and  arranged  her  hair.  When  the  woman  returned, 
she  knew  the  answer  before  it  was  spoken. 

"Miss  Poole  is  not  in  her  cabin.  Her  bed  has  not 
been  slept  in." 

"Ask  the  Captain  to  come  here." 

In  a  few  moments  it  was  all  over.  The  Captain 
had  come  and  gone  again,  with  the  first  page  of 
Diana's  letter  in  his  hand.  The  procedure  after 
that  was  much  the  same  as  it  had  been  two  nights 
before,  except  that  the  Captain  went  alone  on  his 
search,  and  the  result,  with  the  evidence  he  held  in  his 
hand,  was  a  foregone  conclusion  from  the  first.  All 
inquiry  terminated  in  the  same  answer.  No  one 
had  set  eyes  on  "Miss  Poole"  since  the  previous 
evening.  The  last  person  to  speak  with  her  was 
the  stewardess,  who,  on  finding  she  did  not  intend 
going  to  dinner,  had  offered  to  bring  her  some,  but 
had  been  refused.  The  rest  was  conjecture — a  riddle 
that  only  the  sea,  lying  as  blue  and  flat  and  still  as 
the  sea  in  a  gaudy  oleograph,  could  answer.  The 
story  had  flown  round  the  ship  like  wildfire,  and 
hardly  a  soul  but  felt  as  if  he  or  she  had  taken 
part  in  a  murder.  Women  reproached  each  other 
and  themselves,  and  men  went  sombre-eyed  to  the 
smoke-room  and  ordered  drinks  that  left  them  still 


306  April  Folly 

dry-mouthed.  The  blue  and  golden  day  with  the 
perfumes  of  Africa  spicing  its  breath  took  on  a  brazen 
and  arid  look.  It  was  as  if  old  Mother  Africa  had 
already  reached  out  her  brazen  hand  and  dealt  a 
blow,  just  to  remind  everyone  on  the  boat  that  she 
was  there  waiting  for  them,  perhaps  with  a  tragedy 
for  each  in  her  Pandora  box.  The  Captain  had  not 
let  it  be  known  where  and  with  whom  Diana's  last 
note  had  been  found.  With  the  remembrance  of 
April's  ashen  face  as  she  had  handed  it  to  him,  he 
wished  to  spare  the  girl  as  much  as  possible. 

As  for  her,  the  one  clear  thought  in  her  mind  was 
that  she  must  obey  Diana's  last  behest  and  keep 
silence.  It  was  not  hard  to  do  that,  for  she  had  no 
words.  Throughout  the  day,  in  a  kind  of  mental 
torpor,  she  helped  the  stewardess  sort  and  pack  all 
the  costly  clothes  and  possessions  which  were  really 
Diana's,  putting  them  into  the  trunks  already  labelled 
for  a  hotel  in  Cape  Town;  her  own  things  were  locked 
and  sealed  up  in  the  abandoned  cabin  on  the  lower 
deck,  and  she  would  probably  never  see  them  again. 
She  did  not  attempt  to  speak  to  Bellew,  though  she 
knew  that  an  interview  with  him  awaited  her,  for 
there  could  be  no  mistake  about  his  being  that  other 
person  referred  to  in  Diana's  letter.  Neither  did  she 
see  Vereker  Sarle.  He  sent  a  note  during  the  after- 
noon, a  very  sweet  and  friendly  note,  hoping  that 
she  was  not  ill,  and  begging  her  not  to  be  too  upset 
by  the  tragedy.  And  between  the  lines  she  read  as  he 
meant  her  to  do. 

"Why  are  you  hiding  from  me?  Come  on  deck. 
I  want  you." 

She  wanted  him,  too.  She  longed  for  the  comfort 
of  his  presence,  but  did  not  dare  meet  him.  A 


April  Folly  307 

greater  barrier  than  ever  existed  between  them.  The 
dead  girl  stood  there  with  her  finger  on  her  lips.  The 
truth  could  not  now  be  told  to  Sarle,  until,  at  any 
rate,  it  was  known  to  that  unhappy  old  man  in  Eng- 
land whose  head  must  be  bowed  in  sorrow  to  the 
grave.  After  that,  who  could  tell? 

Somehow  she  felt  that  all  hope  of  personal  happi- 
ness with  Vereker  Sarle  was  over.  It  was  unfit  that 
so  clean-souled  and  upright  a  man  should  be  involved 
in  the  tangle  of  lies  and  deceit  and  tragedy  that  she 
and  Diana  had  between  them  encompassed.  He 
would  shrink  from  her  when  he  knew  all,  of  that  she 
felt  certain,  and  it  made  her  shrink  in  turn  to  think 
of  it.  So  she  sent  only  a  little  formal  line  in  answer 
to  his  note,  making  no  reference  to  the  likelihood  of 
seeing  him  on  deck  or  anywhere  else.  It  looked  cold 
and  cruel  enough  to  her,  that  note,  like  a  little  knife 
she  was  sending  him;  but  it  was  a  two-edged  knife, 
with  which  she  also  wounded  herself. 

The  stewardess  brought  her  tea  and  toast,  and  she 
stayed  in  her  room  all  day.  Only  in  the  cool  of  the 
evening,  when  everyone  else  was  dining,  she  crept  out 
for  a  few  moments,  and  leaned  upon  the  ship's  rail, 
drinking  in  the  air  and  staring  at  the  moody  line  of 
land  ahead  that  meant  fresh  experiences  and  trouble 
on  the  morrow!  She  was  afraid  to  look  at  the  sea! 

No  farewell  concert  took  place  that  night.  People 
whispered  together  in  little  groups  for  a  while  after 
dinner,  but  all  the  merriment  of  the  last  night  at  sea 
was  lost  in  the  sense  of  tragedy  that  hung  about  the 
ship.  Almost  everyone  was  oppressed  by  a  feeling 
of  guilty  responsibility  for  what  had  happened.  The 
inherent  decency  of  human  nature  asserted  itself, 
and  each  one  thought: 


308  April  Folly 

"Why  did  I  not  give  the  poor  girl  a  helping  hand 
instead  of  driving  her  to  desperation?"  It  was 
remembered  that  "Lady  Diana"  had  stood  by  her, 
and  everyone  yearned  to  absolve  their  souls  by  ex- 
planation to  the  person  who  (to  her  great  regret)  bore 
that  rank  and  title.  But  she  had  put  a  barricade  of 
stewardesses  between  her  and  them,  and  was  invisible 
to  callers.  Some  few  of  the  younger  and  more  resilient 
passengers,  in  an  effort  to  shake  off  what  seemed  to 
them  useless  gloom,  went  and  asked  the  Captain  to 
allow  the  band  to  play  on  deck.  He  consented, 
stipulating  only  that  there  should  be  no  dancing.  Of 
course,  no  one  wanted  to  dance,  but  as  ships'  bands 
specialize  in  dance  music,  the  musicians  struck  at  once 
into  a  tango,  and  it  happened  to  be  the  one  Diana 
had  made  her  own  by  singing  her  little  French  rhyme 
to  it: 

"Tout  le  monde 
Au  salon 
On  y  tan-gue,  on  y  tan-gue." 

It  only  needed  that.  Every  mind  instantly  conjured 
up  the  picture  of  a  vivid  figure  in  a  frock  that 
gleamed  blue  as  sulphurous  flames.  A  hysterical 
woman  sprang  up  screaming  shrilly,  and  had  to  be 
taken  away;  a  solitary  sea  gull,  its  plumage  shining 
with  a  weird  blueness  in  the  electric  light,  chose  this 
moment  to  fly  low  along  the  deck,  crying  its  wailing 
cry.  That  was  enough.  Another  woman  began  to 
scream;  the  music  stopped,  and  there  was  almost  a 
panic  to  get  away  from  a  spot  that  seemed  haunted. 
In  a  little  while  the  first-class  deck  was  as  deserted 
as  the  deck  of  a  derelict,  and  the  ship  was  wrapped  in 


April  Folly  309 

silence.  The  personality  of  the  April  Fool  seemed 
more  imposing  in  death  than  it  had  been  in  life! 

By  morning  the  Clarendon  Castle  had  reached  her 
destined  port,  and  lay  snugly  berthed  in  Cape  Town 
docks.  April,  venturing  out  at  the  tip  of  dawn  to 
get  a  first  glimpse  of  Africa,  found  that  a  great  moun- 
tain wrapped  in  a  mantle  of  mist  stood  in  the  way. 
It  seemed  almost  as  if  by  reaching  out  a  hand  she  could 
touch  the  dark  sides  of  it,  so  close  it  reared,  and  so 
bleak  it  brooded  above  her.  Yet  she  knew  this  to 
be  an  illusion  of  the  atmosphere,  for  between  her  and 
the  mountain's  base  lay  the  streets  and  little  white 
houses  and  gardens  of  Cape  Town.  It  might  have 
been  some  southern  town  on  the  shores  of  the  Medi- 
terranean except  for  that  mountain,  which  made  it 
unlike  any  other  place  in  the  world.  The  "Table 
of  the  Mass,"  the  Portuguese  named  it,  and  when, 
as  now,  silver  mists  unrolled  themselves  upon  the 
flat  top  and  streamed  in  veils  down  the  gaunt 
sides,  they  said  that  the  cloth  was  spread  for  the 
Sacred  Feast. 

April  thought  of  all  the  great  wanderers  whose  first 
sight  of  Africa  must  inevitably  have  been  the  same  as 
hers — this  mysterious  mountain  standing  like  a  grey 
witch  across  the  path!  Drake  sighted  it  from  afar 
in  1580;  Diaz  was  obliged  to  turn  back  from  it  by  his 
mutinying  sailors;  Livingstone,  Stanley,  Cecil  Rhodes, 
"Doctor  Jim,"  all  the  great  adventurers,  and  thou- 
sands of  lesser  ones,  had  looked  upon  it,  and  gone  past 
it,  to  their  sorrow.  For  if  history  be  true,  none  can 
ever  come  out  from  behind  that  brooding  witch  un- 
touched by  sorrow.  They  may  grow  great,  they 
may  reap  gold  or  laurels,  or  their  heart's  desire;  but 
in  the  reaping  and  the  gaining  their  souls  will  know 


310  April  Folly 

grey  sorrow.     A  rhyme  of  her  childhood  came  un- 
solicited into  April's  mind: 

How  many  miles  to  Banbury? 

Three  score  and  ten. 

Will  I  be  there  by  candlelight? 

Yes,  and  back  again: 

Only — mind  the  old  witch  by  the  way! 

She  shivered,  but  the  sun  burst  like  a  sudden  glorious 
warrior  upon  the  world,  dispersing  fear,  and  making 
her  feel  as  though,  after  all,  everything  and  everyone 
was  young,  and  all  life  decked  out  in  spring  array. 
If  only  the  burden  of  deceit  had  not  been  upon  her, 
how  blithe  and  strong  in  hope  could  she  have  set  foot 
in  this  new  land. 

As  she  turned  to  go  back  to  her  cabin  she  found 
Geoffrey  Bellew  by  her  side.  He  appeared  a  little 
haggard,  and  some  of  his  habitual  self-assurance  was 
missing.  No  doubt  he  had  seen  Table  Mountain  on 
former  visits  to  Africa,  yet  he  looked  at  it  rather 
than  into  the  eyes  of  the  girl  he  addressed. 

"Will  you  go  to  the  Mount  Nelson  Hotel?"  he 
said  in  a  low  tone.  "  I  can  meet  you  there,  and  we 
will  talk  matters  over." 

"When?"  she  said.  Spring  went  out  of  her. 
"Where  is  the  hotel?" 

He  reflected  for  a  moment. 

"Well,  perhaps  you  had  better  give  yourself  into 
my  charge.  I  will  see  you  through  the  Customs,  and 
drive  you  up  afterwards,  and  make  all  arrangements 
—shall  I?" 

She  consented.  It  seemed  as  good  a  plan  as  any 
for  avoiding  bother,  and  had  the  recommendation 
that  it  would  keep  off  Vereker  Sarle.  So,  later,  when 


April  Folly  311 

crowds  began  to  surge  and  heave  upon  the  ship, 
everyone  mad  with  excitement  at  meeting  their 
friends,  and  mountains  of  luggage  barging  in  every 
direction,  she  stayed  close  by  the  side  of  this  man  she 
disliked  intensely,  yet  whose  smooth  ability  to  deal 
with  men  and  matters  she  could  not  but  admire. 
Obstacles  fell  down  like  ninepins  before  him;  stewards 
ran  after  him;  officials  waited  upon  him;  his  baggage, 
the  heaviest  and  most  cumbersome  on  the  ship,  was 
the  first  to  go  down  the  gangway,  and  April's  with  it. 
A  few  hurried  farewells,  and  she  found  herself  seated 
beside  him  in  an  open  landau,  driving  behind  a  con- 
veyance full  of  trunks  towards  the  Customs  House. 
A  dull  pain  burned  within  her  at  the  remembrance 
of  Sarle's  face.  He  had  looked  from  her  to  Bellew 
with  those  steady  eyes  that  saw  so  much  and  be- 
trayed so  little,  merely  remarking,  as  he  took  the 
hand  she  tendered  lightly  in  farewell: 

"One  doesn't  say  good-bye  in  Africa,  Lady  Diana, 
only  'So  long' — meaning  that  we  may  meet  again 
tomorrow,  perhaps  even  today." 

He  had  not  even  looked  after  them  as  they  left  the 
ship.  Yet  April,  because  she  loved  him,  was  aware 
of  his  astonishment  at  this  strange  and  sudden  inti- 
macy of  hers  with  Bellew.  Still,  what  was  the  use  of 
caring?  There  were  worse  hurts  in  store  for  him,  if, 
indeed,  they  met  again  as  he  predicted.  She  bit  on 
the  bullet  and  ignored  the  pain  at  her  heart.  Bellew 
did  not  waste  any  small  talk  on  her;  that  was  one 
comfort.  He  seemed  to  be  more  concerned  about  his 
luggage  than  about  her,  shouting  out  to  the  coloured 
men  to  be  careful  and  to  remove  nothing  from  the 
van  without  his  direction.  At  the  Customs  House, 
in  fact,  all  his  stuff  was  left  assiduously  alone.  April's 


312  April  Folly 

was  opened  and  gone  through  rapidly  by  the  officials; 
but  the  production  of  his  papers  and  credentials  as  an 
attache  to  the  Governor  of  Zambeke,  or  some  such 
outlandish  place,  gave  Bellew  instant  immunity, 
and  no  single  article  of  his  belongings  was  unlocked. 
Within  a  few  moments  they  were  again  en  route  for 
their  hotel. 

Their  way  took  them  by  the  main  thoroughfare  of 
the  town,  and  April  was  astonished  at  the  numbers  of 
people  flocking  on  the  pavements,  filling  trams  and 
rickshaws,  drinking  tea  on  the  overhanging  balconies 
and  restaurants.  The  air  was  sunny,  yet  with  the 
fresh  bite  of  the  sea  in  it,  and  everyone  seemed  gay  and 
careless.  The  whole  of  one  side  of  the  wide  street  was 
lined  by  Malays  and  natives  offering  flowers  for  sale. 
In  front  of  the  Bank  a  sort  of  floral  bazaar  was  estab- 
lished, the  bright  head  "dookies,"  silver  bangles,  and 
glowing  dark  eyes  of  the  vendors  making  a  brave  show 
above  the  massed  glory  of  colour  in  their  baskets. 
Huge  bunches  of  pink  proteas,  spiked  lilies  of  every 
hue,  bales  of  heather  and  waxen  white  chinckerichees 
filled  the  air  with  heavy  perfume.  The  sellers  came 
pressing  to  the  passing  carriages,  soliciting  custom  in 
the  soft  clipped  speech  of  the  Cape  native.  Bellew, 
for  all  he  was  so  distrait,  had  the  graceful  inspiration 
to  stop  and  take  on  a  load  of  colour  and  perfume,  and 
April  for  a  moment  lost  count  of  her  troubles  in  sheer 
joy  of  the  senses. 

"But  where  do  they  come  from?"  she  cried.  "I 
have  never  seen  such  flowers  in  the  world." 

"  There  are  no  flowers  in  the  world  like  those  from 
Table  Mountain,"  he  said. 

"That  old  bleak  beast?"  She  gazed  in  astonish- 
ment at  the  grey  mass  still  hovering  above  and  about 


April  Folly  313 

them.  "  She  looks  as  though  nothing  would  grow  on 
her  gaunt  sides  except  sharp  flints." 

Bellew  laughed. 

"Those  gaunt  sides  are  covered  with  beauty,  and 
hundreds  of  people  make  their  living  from  them." 

"Africa  is  wonderful,"  sighed  April,  and  suddenly 
the  weight  of  her  burden  returned. 

"Africa's  all  right,  if  it  weren't  for  the  people  in  it," 
he  retorted  moodily. 

The  hotel  proved  to  be  a  picturesque  building 
perched  on  rising  ground  above  lovely  gardens.  Some 
of  its  countless  windows  looked  over  the  town  to  the 
sea;  but  most  of  them  seemed  to  be  peered  into  by  the 
relentless  granite  eyes  of  the  mountain.  April's  first 
act  was  to  draw  the  blinds  of  her  room. 

"That  mountain  will  sit  upon  my  heart  and  crush 
me  into  my  grave  if  I  stay  here  long,"  she  thought, 
and  felt  despairing.  Bellew  had  engaged  rooms  for 
her,  boldly  inscribing  the  name  of  "  Lady  Diana  Verni- 
lands"  in  the  big  ledger,  while  she  stood  by,  acquies- 
cing in,  if  not  contributing  to  the  lie.  Afterwards  he 
went  away  to  superintend  the  unloading  of  his  luggage. 
It  appeared  that  his  three  immense  trunks  contained 
much  valuable  glass  and  china  for  the  Governor's 
wife,  and  he  was  taking  no  risks  concerning  their 
safety. 

Although  making  only  a  short  stay,  and  in  spite  of 
the  glum  looks  of  the  porters,  he  had  everything 
carried  carefully  up  to  his  room  on  the  fourth  floor. 
Glum  looks  were  wasted  on  the  bland  Bellew,  who 
lived  by  the  motto  "  Je  men  ficbe  de  tout  h  mondc," 
and  who  on  his  own  confession  would  have  liked 
Africa  to  himself. 

No  word  concerning  the  tragedy  had  yet  passed 


314  April  Folly 

between  him  and  April,  but  she  knew  that  something 
was  impending,  and  that  she  would  probably  do  as  he 
told  her,  for  he  seemed  in  the  strange  circumstances 
to  occupy  the  position  of  sole  executor  to  Diana's 
will.  On  going  down  to  lunch  she  found  that  he  had 
engaged  a  small  table  for  them  both,  but  was  not  there 
himself.  What  pleased  her  less  was  that  as  regards 
company  she  might  just  as  well  have  been  back  on 
board  the  Clarendon  Castle.  Almost  every  one  of  her 
fellow-passengers  was  scattered  around  the  multi- 
plicity of  small  tables.  It  would  seem  as  if  the 
"  Mount  Nelson"  was  the  only  hotel  in  the  town, 
although  she  remembered  quite  a  number  of  others 
in  the  Directory.  Even  Vereker  Sarle  was  there. 
Far  down  the  long  room  she  saw  him  sitting  with  two 
other  men:  one  of  them,  Dick  Nichols,  looking  very 
much  at  home;  the  other  a  distinguished,  saturnine 
man  with  an  English  air  to  him,  in  spite  of  being  burnt 
as  black  as  the  ace  of  spades.  She  was  aware  that 
Sarle  saw  her,  and  had  a  trembling  fear  that  he  might 
join  her.  It  was  almost  a  relief  when  Bellew  came  in 
towards  the  end  of  the  meal,  for  she  knew  he  would 
prove  an  effective  barrier.  He  looked  hot  and  weary, 
and  explained  that  he  had  been  obliged  to  go  back 
down  town  to  attend  to  some  business. 

"  I  think  you  had  better  take  up  your  quarters  here 
for  a  time,"  he  added.  She  flinched  at  the  prospect. 

"  But  why?  It  is  so  public!  Everyone  off  the  boat 
seems  to  be  here,  and  I  shall  have  to  keep  on  telling 
lies  just  because  I  know  them.  It  seems  to  me  I 
can't  open  my  mouth  without  telling  a  lie,  and," 
she  finished  desperately,  "it  makes  me  sick." 

He  looked  at  her  coldly.  His  fine  brown  eyes 
could  be  hard  as  flint. 


April  Folly  315 

"  I  thought  it  was  a  promise — some  sort  of  a  com- 
pact— to  do  what  was  best— for  her?"  he  remarked. 
A  little  cold  wave  of  the  sea  seemed  to  creep  over  her 
soul,  and  she  could  see  her  hands  trembling  as  she 
dealt  with  the  fruit  on  her  plate. 

"Very  well,"   she  acquiesced  tonelessly,   at  last; 
"  if  you  think  it  best.     How  long  am  I  to  stay ?  " 
.  "  Until  next  week's  mail-boat  sails, "  he  said  slowly. 
"  I  have  been  down  to  see  if  I  could  get  you  a  berth  on 
this  week's,  but  she  is  full  up." 

"You  want  me  to  return  to  England?"  There  was 
desperate  resistance  in  her  voice  now.  She  had  not 
realized  until  that  moment  how  much  she  wished  to 
stay. 

"It  is  not  what  /  want:  it  is  for  her,"  he  insisted 
ruthlessly.  "  You  must  go  to  her  father  and  explain 
everything.  Letters  are  no  good." 

She  was  silent,  but  her  eyes  were  wretched.  She 
wanted  to  stay  in  Africa. 

"After  all,  it  is  your  share  of  the  payment  for 
folly,"  he  pursued  relentlessly.  That  was  too  much 
for  her  temper. 

"And  yours?"  she  flashed  back. 

His  face  did  not  change,  but  his  voice  became  very 
gentle. 

"  Don't  worry.     I  too  am  paying." 

She  would  have  given  much  to  recall  her  fierce  retort 
then,  for  after  all,  it  was  true  that  she  was  not  the  only 
one  hit.  This  man  too  was  suffering  under  his  mask. 
He  had  loved  Diana,  and  that  his  love  was  the  direct 
cause  of  the  tragedy  must  make  his  wretchedness  the 
more  acute.  With  an  impulse  of  pity  and  under- 
standing she  put  out  her  hand  to  him  across  the  table, 
but  instead  of  taking  it  he  passed  her  a  little  dish  of 


316  April  Folly 

salted  almonds.  Mortified,  she  looked  up  in  time 
to  see  Sarle  and  his  friends  going  by,  and  was  left 
wondering  how  much  they  had  witnessed,  and  whether 
Bellew  had  meant  to  snub  or  spare  her.  The 
whole  thing  was  a  miserable  mix-up,  and  it  almost 
seemed  to  her  as  if  Diana  had  as  usual  got  the  best 
of  it,  for  at  any  rate  she  was  out  of  the  deceit  and 
discomfort. 

She  thought  so  still  more  when  the  women  sur- 
rounded her  in  the  lounge,  and  drew  her  in  among 
them  to  take  coffee.  They  were  all  as  merry  as  mag- 
pies, and  seemed  to  have  clean  forgotten  the  tragedy 
of  the  ship  except  in  so  far  as  it  lent  a  thrill  to  con- 
versation. Several  who  were  going  on  the  next  day 
to  different  parts  of  the  country  pressed  -her  to  visit 
them  at  their  homes.  Mrs.  Stanislaw  came  up  with 
her  claws  sheathed  in  silk  and  a  strange  woman  in 
tow,  and  murmuring:  "I  must  introduce  Mrs.  Janis. 
She  is  anxious  to  know  all  you  can  tell  her  of 
poor  Miss  Poole, "  stood  smiling  with  a  feline  de- 
light in  the  encounter.  April  turned  from  her  bit- 
ter face  to  the  other  woman,  an  elaborately-dressed 
shrew  with  a  domineering  hook  to  her  nose,  and 
had  the  thankful  feeling  of  a  mouse  who  has  just 
missed  by  a  hair's  breadth  the  click  of  the  trap  on 
its  nose. 

"I'm  afraid  I  can  give  you  no  more  information 
than  is  already  available,"  she  said  distantly. 

"It  seems  to  be  a  most  shameful  affair,"  com- 
plained Mrs.  Janis;  "and  the  wretched  girl  apparently 
has  no  relatives  one  can  write  to." 

"None,"  stated  April  firmly  and  gratefully.  She 
could  well  imagine  how  this  lady  with  a  grievance 
would  treat  the  feelings  of  relations. 


April  Folly  317 

"  Perhaps  Captain  Bellew  might  know  of  someone," 
purred  Mrs.  Stanislaw. 

"You  had  better  ask  him."  It  was  April's  turn  to 
smile,  though  wryly  enough.  "He  will  deal  with  you 
without  the  gloves,"  she  thought,  and  turned  away 
from  them. 

The  lounge  was  a  pleasant  place,  with  French  win- 
dows leading  into  the  garden;  deep  chairs  and  palms 
were  scattered  everywhere,  and  it  smelled  fragrantly 
of  coffee  and  cigars.  Groups  of  men  and  women 
clustered  about  the  small  tables,  smoking  and  talking. 
One  corner  was  fenced  off  by  a  little  counter,  from 
behind  which  a  distinguished-looking  waiter  dispensed 
cocktails  and  liqueurs  with  the  air  of  a  duke  bestow- 
ing decorations.  This  was  Leon,  who  knew  the  pet 
drinks  and  secret  sins  of  everyone  in  South  Africa,  but 
whose  discreet  eyes  told  nothing.  The  knowledge 
he  possessed  of  men,  women,  and  things  would  have 
made  a  fascinating  volume,  but  no  one  had  been  able 
to  unseal  his  lips.  He  hardly  ever  spoke,  simply 
mixing  the  drinks  and  indicating  with  his  hand  the 
tables  to  which  they  should  be  carried.  April  was 
in  the  presence  of  a  personage  without  being  aware 
of  it.  Neither  did  she  know  until  much  later  that  this 
pleasant  lounge  was  one  of  the  principal  gossip  centres 
of  the  country.  In  its  smoky  atmosphere  many  a 
fair  reputation  has  withered  away,  many  a  great 
name  been  tarnished  for  ever.  As  for  the  baby  scan- 
dals that  are  born  there,  have  legs  and  arms  and 
wings  stuck  on  to  them  and  are  sent  anteloping  or 
flying  all  over  the  country,  their  name  is  legion! 

Bellew  had  left  her  immediately  after  lunch.  He 
said  that  he  had  an  appointment  with  an  old  friend 
of  his  mother's,  and  should  be  leaving  to  stay  with  her 


318  April  Folly 

for  several  days  before  continuing  his  journey.  April 
had,  in  fact,  from  her  seat  in  the  lounge  seen  him  come 
out  of  the  lift  into  the  hall  accompanied  by  a  little 
bent  old  lady,  and  watched  them  drive  away  together 
in  a  taxi.  Thereafter  she  breathed  more  freely,  and  a 
longing  to  be  in  the  open  air  out  of  this  smoke-laden 
atmosphere  moved  her  to  extricate  herself  from  the 
chattering  crowd  of  women  and  make  her  way  to  the 
veranda.  It  was  cool  and  fresh  there  under  the  stone 
porticoes,  with  veils  of  green  creepers  hanging  between 
her  and  the  blazing  sunshine  and  colour  of  the  garden. 
She  sat  down,  and,  as  is  always  the  way  with  a  woman 
in  moments  of  silence  and  beauty,  her  thoughts  imme- 
diately clustered  about  the  image  of  the  man  she  loved. 
What  was  Vereker  Sarle  thinking  of  her?  Would  he 
go  from  the  Cape  to  his  home  up  north  without  trying 
to  see  her  again?  While  she  pondered  these  things 
he  walked  out  through  one  of  the  tall  French  windows 
and  came  towards  her,  followed  by  his  dark,  saturnine 
friend.  They  approached  like  men  sure  of  a  welcome, 
Sarle  smiling  in  his  disarmingly  boyish  fashion,  the 
other  man  smiling  too:  but  with  a  difference.  There 
was  some  quality  of  sardonic  amusement  and  curiosity 
in  his  glance  that  arrested  April's  instant  attention. 

"  I  warned  you  that  it  is  hard  to  shake  off  your 
friends  in  this  country,"  said  Sarle  gaily.  "May  we 
come  and  sit  with  you  for  a  little  while?  Sir  Ronald 
tells  me  that  you  and  he  are  quite  old  friends." 

Her  heart  gave  a  leap.  Instantly  she  understood 
the  sardonic  amusement  of  the  stranger's  demeanour. 
If  any  other  man  than  Sarle  had  been  there  she  would 
have  thrown  up  the  sponge.  But  she  could  not  bear 
to  have  the  truth  stripped  and  exposed  there  before 
him.  It  was  too  brutal.  If  he  must  know,  he  should 


April  Folly  319 

know  in  a  less  cruel  manner  than  that.  She  faced 
the  new-comer  squarely,  her  features  frozen  to  an 
outward  composure. 

"This  is  a  very  pleasant  surprise,  Lady  Di!"  he 
said  easily,  while  his  eyes  expressed  the  utmost  amuse- 
ment. "  It  must  be  nearly  two  years  since  we  met?" 

"Oh,  surely  much  longer  than  that?"  she  answered, 
and  her  smile  was  almost  as  mocking  as  his.  They 
stood  taking  each  other's  measure  whilst  Sarle  dragged 
forward  some  chairs.  A  faint  admiration  came  into 
the  man's  face.  She  was  a  fraud,  and  he  knew  that 
she  knew  that  he  knew  it,  but  he  had  also  to 
acknowledge  that  there  was  fine  metal  in  her  even 
for  an  adventuress.  Asa  duellist  at  least  she  seemed 
worthy  of  his  steel.  Besides,  in  her  gown  of  faint  lilac 
and  her  orchid-laden  hat  she  was  a  very  entrancing 
vision.  The  duel  might  be  picturesque  as  well  as 
piquant. 

"I  trust  you  left  Lord  Vernilands  well?"  he  in- 
quired politely.  She  dug  desperately  in  her  mind 
for  a  moment.  It  seemed  foolishly  important  to  be 
truthful,  even  though  this  man  knew  she  was  acting 
a  lie. 

"He  is  never  very  well  in  the  winter,"  she  an- 
swered, without  any  apparent  interlude  for  thought. 
Sir  Ronald  was  even  more  pleased  with  her. 

"That  is  so,"  he  agreed.  "  I  remember  when  I  left 
Bethwick  that  autumn  he  was  just  in  for  his  annual 
bout  of  bronchitis." 

The  two  men  sat  down,  and,  with  her  permission, 
smoked.  Sarle  had  placed  his  chair  where  he  could 
look  full  at  her,  missing  no  shade  of  expression  on  her 
face.  His  frank  warm  eyes  enfolded  her  in  a  gaze 
of  trust  and  devotion  that  was  as  patent  to  the  other 


320  April  Folly 

man  as  to  her.  There  was  no  peace  for  her  in  that 
gaze;  things  were  too  desperate  for  that;  but  it  nerved 
her  resolution  to  fence  to  the  death  with  this  polished 
gamester.  She  had  her  back  to  the  wall,  and  re- 
solved to  die  fighting  rather  than  make  an  ignominious 
surrender  before  the  man  she  loved. 

Sarle  looked  from  one  to  the  other  contentedly. 
For  once  his  far-seeing  veld  eyes  played  him  false. 

"  I  am  so  glad  you  two  are  friends, "  he  said.  Then, 
addressing  April,  "Odd  that  we  shouldn't  have  dis- 
covered it  before,  for,  you  know,  Kenna  is  my  best 
friend,  as  well  as  my  ranching  partner." 


PART  III 

THEY  sat  talking  for  close  on  two  hours,  and  at  the 
end  of  that  time  April  rose  with  a  laugh  on  her  lips 
and  many  a  light  and  airy  reason  why  she  could  not 
stay.  It  was  too  hot,  she  must  rest  a  little,  she  had 
unpacking  to  do.  Even  after  rising  from  her  chair 
she  lingered  as  if  regretful  to  go,  but  they  could  not 
persuade  her  to  stay  and  have  tea  with  them.  Pre- 
sently she  sauntered  off  slowly,  leaving  a  promise 
that  she  would  dine  with  them  that  evening.  She 
did  not  know  why  she  promised.  As  she  walked 
away,  sauntering,  because  her  feet  seemed  as  lead- 
laden  as  her  heart,  she  told  herself  that  it  would 
be  better  to  go  and  dine  with  the  sharks  in  Table  Bay 
than  sit  down  again  with  Ronald  Kenna.  .In  her 
room  she  lay  exhausted  and  very  still  for  a  long  time, 
with  the  feeling  that  she  had  escaped  from  a  red-hot 
gridiron.  She  looked  in  her  mirror  on  entering, 
expecting  to  see  a  vision  of  Medusa,  hair  hanging  in 
streaks,  eyes  distraught,  and  deep  ruts  in  the  cheeks; 
but  her  face  was  charming  and  composed,  and  a  fixed 
smile  curved  her  mouth.  She  shuddered  at  her  own 
image. 

"Lies  deform  and  obscure  the  soul,"  she  thought, 
"yet  my  face  bears  no  mark  of  the  lies  I  have  told 
this  afternoon,  nor  the  hell  my  spirit  has  passed 
through!" 

Only  when  she  removed  her  hat  something  strange 
»i  321 


322  April  Folly 

arrested  her  attention,  something  that  might  have 
been  a  feather  or  a  flake  of  snow  lying  on  her  luminous 
black  hair  just  where  it  grew  low  in  a  widow's  peak 
at  the  centre  of  her  forehead.  She  made  to  brush  it 
lightly  away,  but  it  stayed,  for  it  was  not  a  feather 
at  all,  but  a  lock  of  her  own  hair  that  had  turned 
white.  A  little  gift  from  Ronald  Kenna! 

He  had  played  with  her  as  a  cat  plays  with  a  mouse 
before  killing  it.  True,  he  had  not  killed  her,  nor 
(which  would  have  been  the  same  thing)  exposed  her 
mercilessly  before  Vereker  Sarle's  eyes.  But  he  had 
made  her  pay  for  his  clemency.  Probably  the  clever- 
ness with  which  she  slipped  out  of  the  corners  into 
which  she  was  hedged,  her  skill  in  darting  from  under 
his  menacing  paw,  roused  his  admiration  as  well  as 
his  sporting  instinct.  It  must  have  been  a  great 
game  for  him,  but  hers  were  the  breathless  emotions 
of  the  helpless  mouse  whose  heart  goes  pit-a-pat  in 
the  fear  of  being  gobbled  up  the  next  moment. 

It  was  all  very  subtle.  Sarle  never  suspected  what 
was  going  on,  so  cool  and  sweet  she  looked  under  her 
shady  hat,  so  unfailing  was  her  composure.  He  was 
accustomed  to  the  dry  and  biting  flavour  of  Kenna's 
speech,  and  paid  no  great  heed  to  it.  He  believed 
himself  listening  to  the  witty  reminiscences  of  two 
people  with  many  friends  and  interests  in  common, 
and  nothing  in  the  girl's  manner  as  she  lied  and 
fenced  and  swiftly  covered  up  mistakes  with  jests 
and  laughter  betrayed  the  agony  of  baiting  she  was 
enduring.  Kenna  was  a  friend  he  would  have  trusted 
with  everything  he  had  in  the  world;  but  he  was 
aware  of  ~a  twist  in  that  friend's  nature  which  made 
him  look  at  women  with  sardonic  eyes.  It  had  not 
always  been  so.  Some  woman  had  given  that  cruel 


April  Folly  323 

twist  to  a  loyal  and  trusting  nature;  some  loved  hand 
had  dealt  the  wound  that  festered  in  Ronald  Kenna's 
heart;  and  Sarle,  because  he  guessed  this,  forgave  his 
friend  much.  But  he  would  never  have  forgiven 
had  he  known  what  was  passing  there  under  his  very 
eyes.  The  woman  he  loved  was  on  the  rack,  and  he 
never  guessed  it  because  she  smiled  instead  of  crying 
out. 

And  it  was  all  to  suffer  again  that  evening.  April 
knew  that,  as  she  dressed  herself  carefully  for  dinner. 
There  was  no  mistaking  Kenna's  pressing  request 
that  they  should  be  allowed  to  come  to  her  table. 
Sarle  had  not  had  time  to  ask  for  himself  alone. 
Kenna  had  forestalled  him,  and  there  was  double 
craft  in  the  action:  he  meant  to  keep  his  eye,  or  rather 
his  claw,  on  her,  while  preventing  her  from  being 
alone  with  Sarle.  If  she  was  in  the  fray  to  protect 
Sarle  from  the  pain  of  finding  her  out,  he  was  in  it  to 
protect  Sarle  from  her.  The  situation  might  have 
been  funny  if  it  had  not  been  grim.  She  could  have 
laughed  at  it  but  for  her  fear  of  Kenna,  but  for  an 
old  man's  pain  and  misery,  but  that  the  whole  miser- 
able structure  of  deceit  rested  on  a  girl's  drowned 
body. 

She  put  on  a  black  gown.  It  seemed  only  fitting 
to  absent  herself  awhile  from  the  felicity  of  colour. 
Besides,  all  her  joy  in  clothes  had  gone.  How 
gladly  would  she  now  have  donned  her  own  shabby 
garments,  if  with  them  could  have  returned  the  old 
peace  of  mind!  But  even  the  plain  little  demi- 
toilette  of  black  chiffon  was  peerlessly  cut,  and  her 
whiteness  glowed  like  a  pearl  through  its  filmy  dark- 
ness. There  was  no  way  of  dressing  her  hair  that 
would  hide  the  white  feather  on  her  forehead,  and 


324  April  Folly 

after  trying  once  or  twice  she  left  it.  It  looked  very 
remarkable,  that  touch  of  age  above  her  young,  flower- 
like  face.  She  could  not  altogether  hate  it,  for  it  was 
a  scar  won  bravely  enough,  and  in  desperate  battle. 
Africa  had  not  taken  long  to  put  its  mark  on  her! 

The  men  were  waiting  for  her  in  the  lounge;  Sarle 
looking  radiantly  happy  because  he  was  sure  of  the 
society  of  the  two  people  he  cared  for  most  in  the 
world;  Kenna  with  a  fresh  device  to  try  her  composure. 

"  I  want  to  see  if  you  can  remember  the  ingredients 
of  that  cocktail  I  introduced  to  you  at  the  'Carl ton' 
on  a  certain  memorable  evening  when  we  escaped 
from  Aunt  Grizel, "  he  said  gaily.  She  looked  at  him 
reflectively.  "As  I've  just  been  telling  Sarle,  you 
learned  the  recipe  by  heart,  and  swore  that  from  hence- 
forth you  would  use  no  other." 

"Ah,  yes,"  she  drawled  slowly.  "  But  you  take  no 
account  of  time  and  my  'Winter-garment  of  Repent- 
ance.' I  am  a  very  different  girl  to  the  one  you  knew 
two  years  ago." 

"  I  realize  that,  of  course."  He  grinned  with  de- 
light at  her  point.  It  seemed  to  him  possible  that 
the  evening  might  be  even  more  entertaining  than 
the  afternoon. 

"This  girl  never  drinks  cocktails,"  she  finished 
quaintly,  and  he  liked  her  more  and  more. 

Many  glances  followed  them  as  they  passed  down 
the  long  room,  full  of  rose-shaded  candles  and  the 
heavy  scent  of  flowers.  Pretty  women  are  not  scarce 
in  Cape  Town,  especially  at  the  season  when  all 
Johannesburg  crowds  to  the  sea,  but  there  was  a 
haunting,  almost  tragic  loveliness  about  April  that 
night  that  set  her  apart  from  the  other  women,  and 
drew  every  eye.  Sarle  felt  his  pulses  thrill  with  the 


April  Folly  325 

pride  that  stirs  every  man  when  the  seal  of  public 
admiration  is  set  upon  the  woman  he  loves.  As  he 
looked  at  her  across  the  table  he  suddenly  recalled 
some  little  verses  he  had  found  scrawled  in  Kenna's 
writing  on  an  old  book  once  when  they  were  away 
together  on  the  veld: 

My  love  she  is  a  lady  fair, 

A  lady  fair  and  fine; 
She  is  to  eat  the  rarest  meat 

And  drink  the  reddest  wine. 

Her  jewelled  foot  shall  tread  the  ground 

Like  a  feather  on  the  air; 
Oh!  and  brighter  than  the  sunset 

The  frocks  my  love  shall  wear! 

If  she  be  loyal  men  shall  know 

What  beauty  gilds  my  pride; 
If  she  be  false  the  more  glad  I, 

For  the  world  is  always  wide. 

Poor  Kenna!  She  had  been  false:  that  was  why  he 
had  sought  the  wide  world  of  the  veld  and  renounced 
women.  Sarle,  certain  of  the  innate  truth  and 
loyalty  of  the  girl  opposite  him  as  of  her  pearl-like 
outer  beauty,  could  pity  his  friend's  fate  from  the 
bottom  of  his  soul.  But  being  a  man,  he  did  not 
linger  too  long  with  pity;  hope  is  always  a  pleasanter 
companion,  and  hope  was  burning  in  him  like  a  blue 
flame:  the  hope  that  within  an  hour  or  two  he  would 
hold  this  radiant  girl  in  his  arms  and  touch  her  lips. 
He  thought  of  the  garden  outside,  full  of  shadows  and 
scented  starlight,  and  looking  at  the  curve  of  her  lips, 
his  eyes  darkened,  and  strange  bells  rang  in  his  ears. 
She  had  eluded  him  for  many  nights,  although  she 
knew  he  loved  her.  He  had  kissed  her  fingers  and 


326  April  Folly 

the  palm  of  her  hand,  but  tonight  out  in  the  starlit 
garden  he  meant  to  kiss  her  lips.  The  resolve  was 
iron  in  him.  He  hardly  heard  what  the  other  two 
were  saying.  He  was  living  in  a  world  of  his  own. 
April,  weary  of  Kenna's  cruel  heckling,  turned  to  him 
for  a  moment's  relief,  and  what  she  saw  in  his  eyes 
was  wine  and  oil  for  her  weariness,  but  it  made  her 
afraid,  not  only  because  of  the  perilous  longing  in 
her  to  give  him  all  he  asked,  but  because  Kenna  sat 
alert  as  a  lynx  for  even  a  smile  she  might  cast  that 
way.  It  was  very  certain  that  no  opportunity  would 
be  given  them  for  being  a  moment  together;  and 
divining  something  of  Sarle's  resolute  temper,  she 
could  not  help  miserably  wondering  what  would 
happen  when  it  came  to  a  tussle  of  will  between  the 
two  men. 

However,  even  the  careful  plans  of  first-class 
lynxes  go  awry  sometimes.  A  waiter  came  to  the 
table  to  say  that  Kenna  was  wanted  on  the  telephone. 

"Tell  them  I'm  engaged,"  was  the  curt  answer. 

"It's  his  Honour  Judge  Byng,  sir,"  said  the  waiter 
in  an  awed  manner,  "and  I  have  already  told  him  you 
were  at  dinner.  He  says  it  is  most  important." 

Kenna  glared  at  the  man,  then  at  his  companions. 
The  latter  appeared  placidly  indifferent.  April  sipped 
her  wine,  and  her  eyes  roamed  round  the  room 
whilst  she  exchanged  idle  talk  with  Sarle.  But 
the  moment  Kenna's  back  was  turned  indifference 
fell  from  them;  they  looked  at  each  other  eagerly  like 
two  school-children  in  a  hurry  to  take  advantage  of 
the  teacher's  absence. 

"  Darn  him !"  muttered  Sarle.  "  I  wish  Byng  would 
keep  him  all  night." 

"He  will  be  back  directly,"  she  said  breathlessly. 


April  Folly  327 

Sarle  glanced  at  the  plates.  They  were  only  at  the 
fish. 

"He's  got  to  finish  his  dinner,  I  suppose,"  he  said 
grudgingly.  "But  can't  we  escape  afterwards?  I 
want  to  show  you  the  garden." 

"  He's  sure  to  stay  with  us, "  she  answered  tragically. 

"Oh — but  to  Halifax  with  him!"  began  Sarle. 

"  I  know,  but  we  mustn't  offend  him,"  she  implored 
hastily.  "He  ...  he's  such  a  good  fellow." 

"Of  course  I  realize  he  is  an  old  friend  of  yours,  and 
likes  to  be  with  you,  and  all  that,"  Sarle  conceded. 
"But  so  do  I.  I  want  to  show  you  the  garden  .  .  . 
by  myself."  He  looked  pleadingly  and  intently  into 
her  eyes  until  her  lids  fell  and  a  soft  flush  suffused 
her  cheeks.  His  glance  drank  in  every  detail  of  her 
fresh,  sweet  beauty. 

".What's  that  funny  little  patch  of  white  on  your 
hair?"  he  asked  suddenly.  "I  have  been  puzzling 
about  it  all  the  evening.  Is  it  a  new  fashion?"  She 
shook  her  head. 

"He's  coming  back."  From  where  she  sat  she 
could  see  Kenna  the  moment  he  entered  the  room. 

"Promise  you  will  come  to  the  garden,"  he  urged. 

"Yes,"  she  said  softly. 

"No  matter  how  long  it  takes  to  get  rid  of  him?" 

"Yes." 

"Even  if  we  have  to  pretend  to  say  good-night? 
...  I  shall  be  waiting  for  you  .  .  .  you'll  come?" 
She  nodded ;  there  was  no  .time  for  more.  Kenna  was 
upon  them,  very  cross  at  having  his  dinner  interrupted, 
and  with  an  eye  cocked  searchingly  upon  April. 
But  neither  she  nor  Sarle  gave  any  sign  of  what  had 
passed. 

Later,  when  they  were  round  their  coffee  in  the 


328  April  Folly 

lounge,  the  hall-porter  brought  her  some  letters  on 
a  salver.  She  saw  Kenna  looking  at  her  satirically 
as  she  examined  the  superscriptions.  All  were  ad- 
dressed to  Lady  Diana  Vernilands,  and  the  problem 
of  what  she  was  to  do  about  letters  was  one  not  yet 
considered. 

"Don't  let  me  keep  you  from  your  interesting  cor- 
respondence," he  remarked,  and  April  started,  to 
find  that  they  were  alone.  Sarle  had  gone  across  to 
Leon  to  get  some  cigars. 

"Oh,  there's  nothing  that  can't  wait,"  she  said 
hastily,  and  pushed  them  into  her  hand-bag. 

"  I  agree" — he  assumed  a  bright,  conversational 
air — "  that  some  things  are  even  more  interesting  for 
being  waited  for;  the  explanation  of  your  conduct,  for 
instance!" 

She  looked  at  him  steadily,  though  her  heart  was 
beating  rapidly,  for  this  moment  had  come  upon  her 
with  sudden  unexpectedness. 

"You  appear  to  suffer  from  curiosity?" 

"Don't  call  it  suffering."  His  tone  was  suave. 
"  I  am  enjoying  myself  immensely." 

"  I  shall  try  not  to  do  anything  to  interfere  with 
your  amusement,"  she  remarked,  after  a  pause. 

"That  will  be  kind.  The  situation  piques  me.  I 
should  like  to  watch  it  to  a  finish  without  contribut- 
ing to  the  denouement;  unless" — he  looked  at  her 
significantly — "  I  am  obliged  to." 

"  I  cannot  believe  anything  or  any  one  could  oblige 
you  to  be  disagreeable,  Sir  Ronald,"  she  jeered  softly. 
He  meditated  with  an  air  of  gravity. 

"There  are  one  or  two  things,  though;  friendship, 
for  instance — I  would  do  quite  disagreeable  things 
for  the  sake  of  a  friend."  She  was  silent. 


April  Folly  329 

"  I  might  even  vex  a  woman  I  admire  as  much  as 
I  do  you,  to  save  a  friend  from  disaster." 

Thus  they  sparred,  the  attention  of  each  fixed  on 
Sarle,  so  gay  and  debonair,  buying  cigars  within  a 
stone's  throw  of  them.  Having  finished  with  Leon, 
he  attempted  to  rejoin  them,  but  the  lounge  was 
crowded,  and  at  every  few  steps  some  old  friend 
entangled  him. 

"There  is  nothing  much  to  admire  about  me."  In 
spite  of  herself  a  note  of  desolation  crept  into  her 
voice.  Kenna  looked  at  her  in  surprise.  This  was  a 
new  side  to  the  adventuress! 

"  Au  contraire.  Apart  from  the  inestimable  gifts 
of  youth  and  beauty  the  gods  have  bestowed,  you 
possess  a  quality  that  would  draw  admiration  from 
the  most  unwilling — courage." 

She  bowed  mockingly.  Sarle  was  escaping  from 
his  many  friends  at  last  and  returning.  Kenna 
rapped  out  what  he  had  to  say  sharply,  though  his 
voice  was  low. 

"He  is  a  good  fellow,  and  I  do  not  care  to  give  him 
pain — unless  you  force  me  to." 

He  searched  her  face  keenly,  but  found  no  trace 
there  of  anything  except  a  courteous  interest  in  his 
conversation.  She  did  not  mean  him  to  guess  how 
much  Vereker  Sarle's  happiness  meant  to  her. 

"Anything  else?"  she  dared  him. 

"Well,  of  course  I  should  like  to  know  where  the 
real  Lady  Diana  is,"  he  said  carelessly.  That  gave 
her  a  bad  moment.  Mercifully,  the  waiter  created 
a  diversion  by  knocking  a  coffee-cup  over  as  he 
removed  the  tray,  and  Sarle,  returning,  had  some 
news  for  Kenna  of  a  mutual  friend's  success  in  some 
political  campaign.  This  gave  her  a  short  space  in 


330  April  Folly 

which  to  recover.  But  she  was  badly  shaken,  and 
wondered  desperately  how  she  was  going  to  get  through 
the  rest  of  the  evening  if  Kenna  clung.  They  sat 
talking  in  a  desultory  fashion,  each  restlessly  watching 
the  others.  There  was  a  clatter  of  conversation 
about  them,  and  in  the  adjoining  drawing-room  a 
piano  and  violins  had  begun  to  play.  The  air  was 
warm  and  heavy.  For  some  reason  April  could  not 
fathom  the  French  windows  had  been  closed,  and 
there  was  a  swishing,  seething  sound  outside,  as 
though  the  sea  was  rushing  in  tides  through  the 
garden.  She  felt  curiously  unstrung.  It  was  not 
only  the  nervous  effect  of  having  these  two  men  so 
intent  upon  her  every  word  and  movement,  but 
there  was  something  extraordinarily  disturbing  in  the 
atmospheric  conditions  that  made  the  palms  of  her 
hands  ache  and  her  scalp  prickle  as  from  a  thousand 
tiny  thorns. 

"I  don't  think  I  can  bear  this  place  much  longer," 
she  said  suddenly,  even  to  herself  unexpectedly. 
"Wouldn't  it  be  cooler  out  where  we  were  sitting  this 
afternoon?" 

"I  think  so, "said  Sarle  briskly.  "Besides  I  want 
to  show  you  the  garden."  He  rose,  but  Kenna  rose 
too. 

"My  dear  fellow,"  he  expostulated  gently,  "don't 
you  realize  there  is  a  south-easter  blowing?  We 
can't  subject  Lady  Di  to  the  curse  of  the  Cape  to- 
night. It  always  affects  new-comers  most  disagree- 
ably. In  fact,  I  think  she  is  suffering  from  it  already." 

"Is  that  what  is  making  me  prickle  all  over  and 
feel  as  though  I  want  to  commit  murder?"  she  in- 
quired, with  rather  a  tremulous  smile.  "What  is 
this  new  African  horror?" 


April  Folly  331 

"Only  our  Cape  'mistral/"  Sarle  looked  at  her 
anxiously.  "It's  blowing  a  bit  hard  in  the  trees 
outside,  but— 

"  I  thought  that  was  the  sea.  If  it's  only  the  wind 
I  don't  mind."  She  rose,  half  hesitating.  "I  love 
wind." 

"I  think  it  would  be  very  unwise  of  you  to  go," 
said  Kenna  quietly.  Sarle  thought  him  infernally 
interfering,  though  he  heard  nothing  in  the  words 
but  friendly  counsel.  To  April  the  remark  con- 
tained a  threat,  and  she  gave  way  with  as  good 
a  grace  as  she  might,  holding  out  her  hand  to  say 
good-night  to  them. 

"  Perhaps  I  had  better  postpone  acquaintance  with 
your  curse  as  long  as  possible."  The  words  were  for 
Kenna,  her  smile  for  Sarle. 

"  I  will  see  you  to  the  lift,"  the  latter  said.  Kenna 
could  hardly  offer  to  come  too,  but  as  it  was  only  just 
across  the  lounge  to  the  hall,  and  within  range  of  his 
eye,  perhaps  he  thought  it  did  not  matter.  He  could 
not  know  that  Sarle,  sauntering  with  a  careless  air 
beside  her,  was  saying  very  softly  and  only  for  her 
ear: 

"It  is  quite  early.  If  instead  of  taking  the  lift 
again  you  came  down  the  main  staircase,  you  would 
find  a  door  almost  opposite,  leading  into  the  garden. 
I  think  you  promised?" 

His  voice  was  very  pleading.  She  did  not  answer, 
nor  even  turn  his  way.  But  once  safely  in  the  lift, 
out  of  the  range  of  Kenna's  gimlet  eyes,  over  the 
shoulders  of  the  stunted  brown  lift-boy  she  let  her 
glance  rest  in  his,  and  so  told  him  that  he  would  have 
his  wish. 

There    must    have    been    some   witchery    in    that 


332  April  Folly 

south-east  wind.  She  knew  it  was  madness  to  go, 
that  she  was  only  entangling  herself  more  closely  in  a 
mesh  which  could  not  be  unravelled  for  many  days. 
Yet  within  half  an  hour  she  was  out  there  in  the  dark- 
ness, with  the  wind  tearing  at  her  hair  and  flickering 
her  cloak  about  her  like  a  silken  sail.  When  she 
closed  the  door  behind  her  and  went  forward  it  was 
like  plunging  into  an  unknown  purple  pool,  full  of 
dark  objects  swaying  and  swimming  beside  her  in  the 
fleeting  darkness.  Tendrils  of  flowering  plants  caught 
at  her  with  twining  fingers.  A  heavily  scented  waxen 
flower,  pallid  as  the  face  of  a  lost  soul,  stooped  and 
kissed  her  from  a  balcony  as  she  passed.  The  young 
trees  were  like  slim  girls  bowing  to  each  other  with 
fantastic  grace;  the  big  trees  stood  together  "terrible 
as  an  army  with  banners,"  raging  furiously  in  an 
uproar  like  the  banging  of  a  thousand  breakers  upon 
a  brazen  beach.  The  sky  was  full  of  wrack,  with  a 
snatch  of  moon  flying  across  it,  and  a  scattering  of  lost 
stars. 

She  felt  more  alive  and  vital  than  ever  in  her  life 
before.  The  clamour  of  the  storm  seemed  to  be  in 
her  veins  as  well  as  in  her  ears.  She  was  glad  with  a 
wild,  exultant  happiness  of  which  she  had  never 
dreamed,  when  she  found  herself  snatched  by  strong 
arms  and  held  close,  close.  The  maelstrom  whirled 
about  her,  but  she  was  clasped  safe  in  a  sheltered 
place.  Sarle  kissed  her  with  long,  silent  kisses. 
There  was  no  need  for  words,  their  lips  told  the  tale 
to  each  other.  It  seemed  to  her  that  her  nature  ex- 
panded into  the  vastness  of  the  sea  and  the  wind  and 
the  stars,  and  became  part  with  them.  .  .  .  But  all 
the  while  she  was  conscious  of  being  just  a  slight, 
trembling  girl  held  close  against  a  man's  heart — 


April  Folly  333 

the  right  man,  and  the  right  heart!  She  had  come 
across  the  sea  to  find  him,  and  Africa  had  given  them 
to  each  other.  She  lost  count  of  time  and  place  and 
terror.  The  burden  of  her  trouble  mercifully  left 
her.  She  remembered  only  that  she  and  Vereker 
Sarle  loved  each  other  and  were  here  alone  together 
in  this  wind-wracked  wilderness  of  perfumed  darkness 
and  mystery.  Her  ears  and  mind  were  closed  to  every- 
thing but  his  whispering  words: 

"My  darling,  my  darling  ...  1  have  waited  for 
you  all  my  life  .  .  .  women  have  been  nothing  to  me 
because  I  knew  you  were  somewhere  in  the  world. 
I  have  crossed  the  veld  and  the  seas  a  thousand  times 
looking  for  you,  and  have  found  you  at  last!  1  will 
never  let  you  go." 

He  kissed  her  throat  and  her  eyes.  More  than 
ever  her  whiteness  shone  in  the  gloom  with  the  lumi- 
nousness  of  a  pearl. 

"Your  beauty  makes  me  tremble,"  he  whispered 
in  her  hair.  "Darling,  say  that  you  love  me  and 
will  give  yourself  to  me  for  ever." 

"  I  love  you,  Vereker.  .  .  ." 

"Call  me  Kerry." 

"  I  love  you,  Kerry.     I  give  myself  to  you." 

She  rejoiced  in  her  beauty,  because  it  was  a  precious 
gift  to  him. 

"You  don't  know  what  you  mean  to  me,  Diana — 
a  star  dropped  out  of  heaven;  the  pure  air  of  the  veld 
I  love ;  white  lilies  growing  on  a  mountain  top.  Thank 
God  you  are  all  these  things  without  any  darkness  in 
you  anywhere.  It  is  the  crown  of  a  man's  life  to 
love  a  woman  like  you." 

"  Let  me  go,  Kerry,"  she  said.     "  It  is  late.     1  must 

go." 


334  April  Folly 

He  did  not  notice  that  her  voice  was  broken  with 
tears,  for  the  wind  swept  her  words  up  to  the  trees 
and  the  boiling  wrack  of  clouds  beyond.  But  he 
knew  that  it  was  time  for  her  to  go.  That  wild  pool 
of  love  and  wind  and  stars  was  too  sweet  and  dangerous 
a  place  for  lovers  to  linger  in.  He  wrapped  her  cloak 
about  her  and  sheltered  her  back  to  the  door  from 
which  she  had  emerged. 

"Tomorrow  morning  ...  I  shall  be  waiting  for 
you  in  the  lounge.  We  will  settle  then  how  soon  you 
will  give  yourself  to  me — it  must  be  very  soon,  darling. 
I  am  forty-four,  and  can't  wait  a  moment." 

The  light  from  the  door  fell  on  his  face  and  showed  it 
gay  as  a  boy's.  Her  face  was  hidden,  or  he  must  have 
recognized  the  misery  stamped  upon  it. 


In  the  morning  light  it  seemed  to  her  that  the 
finger  of  snow  on  her  hair  had  broadened  a  little.  It 
was  five  o'clock  of  an  ice-green  dawn,  with  the  moun- 
tain like  an  ashen  wraith  outside,  and  the  wind  still 
raging.  South-easters  last  for  three  days,  Kenna 
had  said,  and  she  shuddered  to  look  at  that  unseen 
power  whipping  the  leaves  from  the  trees,  beating 
down  the  beauty  of  the  garden,  tearing  the  mists 
from  the  mountain's  side,  only  to  pile  them  higher 
upon  the  summit.  It  took  courage  to  go  out  in  that 
wind,  but  it  took  greater  courage  to  stay  and  meet 
Vereker  Sarle.  So  she  was  dressed  and  hatted,  with 
a  small  suit-case  in  her  hand,  and  starting  on  a  journey 
to  the  Paarl.  She  did  not  know  what  "the  Paarl" 
was,  nor  where!  Her  first  introduction  to  that 
strange  name  was  at  midnight,  when  she  found  it  on 
one  of  the  letters  addressed  to  Diana.  All  the  other 


April  Folly  335 

letters  were  of  no  consequence,  but  the  Paarl  letter 
seemed  to  solve  for  her  the  pressing  and  immediate 
problem  of  how  to  escape  from  the  terror  of  exposure 
by  Kenna  before  the  loved  eyes  of  Sarle.  It  was 
from  the  parson's  daughter,  that  eccentric  painter 
who  lived  somewhere  on  the  veld,  and  whose  home 
was  to  have  been  Diana's  destination.  "Clive  Con- 
nal"  she  signed  herself,  and  said  she  hoped  Diana 
would  take  the  morning  train,  as  it  was  the  coolest 
one  to  travel  by,  and  arrive  at  the  Paarl  by  8.30, 
where  a  mule-cart  would  be  waiting  to  take  her  to 
Ho-la-le-la.1  So  April  meant  to  follow  instructions 
and  trust  to  luck  to  see  her  through.  Whatever 
happened,  it  could  not  be  more  terrible  than  to  read 
disgust  and  disillusion  in  Vereker  Sarle's  eyes. 

She  stole  down  the  stairs  like  a  shadow,  and  found 
a  sleepy  clerk  in  the  booking-office.  It  was  simple 
to  explain  to  him  that  she  was  going  away  for  a  few 
days,  but  wished  her  room  kept  on,  and  everything 
left  as  it  was.  She  would  send  a  wire  to  say  at  what 
date  she  would  be  returning.  There  was  no  difficulty 
about  the  bill,  for,  fortunately,  Bellew  had  supplied 
her  with  plenty  of  money,  saying  it  was  Diana's,  and 
that  she  would  have  wished  it  to  be  used.  It  was  too 
early  for  a  taxi  to  be  got,  even  by  telephoning,  but 
the  porter  caught  a  stray  rickshaw  that  chanced  to  be 
passing,  and  April  had  her  first  experience  of  flying 
downhill  behind  a  muscular  black  man  with  feathers 
in  his  hair  and  bangles  on  his  feet.  Before  she  reached 
the  station  her  veil  and  hair  were  in  streamers,  and 
her  scalp  was  almost  torn  from  her  head,  but  the 
serpent  jaune  which  had  gnawed  her  vitals  all  night 
had  ceased  from  troubling,  and  joy  of  living  glowed  in 

1  Basuto  for  "Far  away  over  there." 


336  April  Folly 

her  once  more.  She  could  not  help  it;  there  was 
something  in  the  air  and  the  wind  and  the  blaze  of 
Africa  that  made  for  life,  and  thrust  out  despair. 
It  swept  away  misery  as  the  south-easter  had  swept 
the  skies,  leaving  them  blue  and  clear  as  a  flawless 
turquoise. 

She  caught  her  train,  and  in  fate's  good  hour  reached 
the  Paarl,  which  proved  to  be  a  town  of  one  long 
street,  decked  with  stately  oaks,  and  mellowed  old 
Dutch  homes.  The  mule-cart  was  waiting  for  her, 
and  on  the  driver's  seat  a  woman  with  the  austere 
features  and  blue,  pure,  visionary  eyes  of  Galahad, 
the  stainless  knight.  But  she  was  dressed  in  breeches 
and  a  slouch  hat,  a  cigarette  hung  from  the  corner 
of  her  mouth,  and  she  beckoned  April  gladsomely 
with  an  immense  cowthong  whip. 

"Come  on!  I  was  afraid  you'd  shirk  the  early 
train,  but  I  see  you're  the  stuff.  Hop  in!" 

April  did  her  best,  but  hopping  into  a  Cape  cart 
that  has  both  steps  missing  takes  some  practice. 
The  mules  did  most  of  the  hopping;  she  scrambled, 
climbed,  sprawled,  and  sprained  herself  all  over  before 
she  reached  the  vacant  seat,  already  encumbered 
with  many  parcels.  With  a  blithe  crack  of  the  whip 
and  a  string  of  strange  words  flung  like  a  challenge 
at  her  mules,  Miss  Connal  got  under  way. 

The  farm  was  six  miles  off,  but  ere  they  had  gone 
two  April  knew  the  painter  as  well  as  if  they  had 
been  twin  sisters.  Clive  Connal  hadn't  a  secret  or 
a  shilling  she  would  not  share  with  the  whole  world. 
She  used  the  vocabulary  of  a  horse-dealer  and  the 
slang  of  a  schoolboy,  but  her  mind  was  as  fragrant 
as  a  field  that  the  Lord  hath  blessed,  and  her 
heart  was  the  heart  of  a  child.  It  was  shameful  to 


April  Folly  337 

deceive  such  a  creature,  and  April's  nature  revolted 
from  the  act.  Before  they  reached  the  farm  she  had 
confessed  her  identity — explaining  how  the  change 
had  come  about,  and  why  it  was  important  to  go  on 
with  the  deception.  Too  much  explanation  was  not 
necessary  with  a  person  of  dive's  wide  understanding. 
No  vagaries  of  behaviour  seemed  to  shock  or  astonish 
her  large  human  soul.  She  merely,  during  the  relation 
of  Diana's  tragedy,  muttered  once  or  twice  to  herself: 

"The  poor  thing!  Oh!  the  poor  thing!"  and  looked 
at  April  as  though  she  too  were  "a  poor  thing," 
instead  of  a  fraud  and  an  adventuress  to  be  abjured 
and  cast  out.  For  the  first  time  since  her  mother's 
death  the  girl  felt  herself  sheltering  in  the  warmth  of 
womanly  sympathy,  and  the  comfort  of  it  was  very 
sweet. 

"Don't  worry  too  much,"  said  Clive  cheerfully. 
"  Tout  s' arrange:  that's  my  motto.  Everything  comes 
straight  if  you  leave  it  alone." 

A  cheerful  motto  indeed,  and  one  seeming  to  fit  well 
with  the  picture  of  the  old  farmhouse  lying  in  the 
morning  sunshine.  Low-roofed  and  white-walled,  it 
was  tucked  under  the  shelter  of  the  Qua-Qua  moun- 
tains, with  apricot  orchards  stretching  away  on  either 
side.  Six  immense  oaks  spread  their  untrimmed 
branches  above  the  high  stoep,  and  before  the  house, 
where  patches  of  yellow-green  grass  grew  ragged  as  a 
vagabond's  hair,  a  Kerry  cow  was  pegged  out  and 
half  a  dozen  black  babies  disported  themselves 
amongst  the  acorns.  Dozens  of  old  paraffin  tins 
stained  with  rust,  and  sawed-off  barrels  bulging 
asunder  lined  the  edge  of  the  stoep,  all  filled  with 
geraniums,  begonias,  cacti,  red  lilies,  and  feathery 
bamboos.  Every  plant  had  a  flower,  and  every 


338  April  Folly 

flower  was  a  brilliant,  vital  thing.  Other  decorations 
were  a  chopping-block,  an  oak  chest,  blistered  and 
curled  by  the  sun,  several  wooden  beds  with  the 
bedding  rolled  up  on  them,  and  two  women,  who 
smiled  a  welcome.  These  were  Ghostie,  and  belle 
Helene — the  only  names  April  ever  knew  them  by. 

"Welcome  to  the  home  for  derelicts,  broken  china, 
and  old  crocks,"  they  said.  "You  may  think  you 
are  none  of  these  things,  but  there  must  be  something 
the  matter  with  you  or  you  wouldn't  be  here." 

"Too  true!"  thought  April,  but  smilingly  answered, 
"There  doesn't  seem  much  wrong  with  you!" 

"Oh,  there  is,  though.  Ghostie  is  a  journalist, 
recovering  from  having  the  soul  trampled  out  of  her 
by  Johannesburg  Jews.  I  am  a  singer  with  a  sore 
throat  and  a  chronic  pain  in  my  right  kidney  that  I 
am  trying  to  wash  away  with  the  juice  of  dive's 
apricots  and  the  milk  from  Clive's  cows." 

"NufT  sed,"  interposed  Clive.  "Let's  think  about 
some  grub.  I've  brought  back  sausages  for  break- 
fast." 

Meekie,  the  mother  of  the  black  babies,  had  fetched 
in  the  parcels  from  the  cart,  and  already  there  was  a 
fizzling  sound  in  the  kitchen.  The  rest  of  the  house- 
hold proudly  conducted  April  to  the  guest-chamber. 
There  was  nothing  in  it  except  a  packing-case  and  a 
bed,  but  the  walls  were  covered  by  noble  studies  of 
mountains.  Clive  pointed  out  some  large  holes  in  the 
floor,  warning  April  not  to  get  her  foot  twisted  in 
them. 

"I  don't  think  there  are  any  snakes  here,"  she 
said  carelessly.  "There  is  an  old  cobra  under  the 
dining-room  floor,  and  we  often  hear  her  hissing  to 
herself,  but  she  never  does  any  harm." 


April  Folly  339 

"  It  is  better  to  sleep  on  the  stoep  at  night,"  Ghostie 
recommended.  "We  all  do." 

Before  the  afternoon  April  had  settled  down  among 
them  as  if  she  had  lived  there  always.  Sarle  and  his 
kisses  seemed  like  a  lost  dream;  the  menace  of  Kenna 
was  forgotten.  For  the  first  time  in  her  existence 
she  let  herself  drift  with  the  tide,  taking  no  thought 
for  the  morrow  nor  the  ultimate  port  at  which  her 
boat  would  "swing  to."  It  was  lotus-eating  in  a 
sense,  yet  none  of  the  dwellers  at  Ho-la-le-la  idled. 
It  is  true  that  Ghostie  and  belle  Helene  were  crocks, 
but  they  worked  at  the  business  of  repairing  their 
bodies  to  tackle  the  battle  of  life  once  more.  April 
soon  discovered  that  they  were  only  two  of  the  many 
of  Clive's  comrades  who  came  broken  to  the  farm 
and  went  away  healed.  Clive  was  a  Theosophist: 
all  men  were  her  brothers,  and  all  women  her  sisters; 
but  those  especially  among  art-workers  who  fell  by 
the  wayside  might  share  her  bread  and  blanket. 
They  called  her  Old  Mother  Sphinx,  because  of  her 
inscrutable  eyes,  and  the  tenderness  of  her  mothering. 

She  herself  never  stopped  working,  and  her  body 
was  hard  as  iron  from  long  discipline.  She  rose  in 
the  dawn  to  work  on  her  lands,  hoeing,  digging  her 
orchards,  and  tending  her  cattle  in  company  with  her 
coloured  labourers.  It  was  only  at  odd  moments  or 
during  the  heat  of  the  day  that  she  painted,  and  all 
the  money  she  made  with  paint  was  swallowed  up  by 
the  farm,  which  did  not  pay,  but  which  was  the  very 
core  of  her  heart. 

Impossible  for  April  to  be  in  such  company  and  not 
work  too,  even  if  her  thoughts  had  not  demanded 
occupation.  So,  first  she  mended  the  clothes  of 
everybody,  including  Meekie's  ragged  piccanins; 


34°  April  Folly 

then  she  went  to  the  Paarl,  bought  a  pot  of  green 
paint,  and  spent  days  of  sheer  forgetfulness  smartening 
up  the  rusty  paraffin  tins  and  barrels,  and  all  the 
bleared  and  blistered  shutters  and  doors  and  sills  of 
the  farm,  that  had  not  known  paint  for  many  years. 

At  mid-day  they  bathed  in  a  tree-shaded  pool  that 
had  formed  in  the  bed  of  a  stream  running  across  the 
farm.  They  had  no  bathing  frocks  but  their  skins, 
and  sometimes  Clive,  sitting  stark  on  the  bank, 
palette  in  hand,  painted  the  others  as  they  tumbled 
in  the  dark  brown  water,  sporting  and  splashing  like 
a  lot  of  schoolboys.  Afterwards  they  would  mooch 
home  through  the  shimmering  noontide  heat,  deli- 
ciously  tired,  wrapped  in  reflection  and  their  towels. 
Ghostie  provided  a  perpetual  jest  by  wearing  a  smart 
Paris  hat  with  a  high  cerise  crown.  She  said  it  had 
once  belonged  to  the  fastest  woman  in  South  Africa, 
who  had  given  it  to  her  as  a  joke,  but  she  did  not 
mention  the  lady's  name,  nor  say  in  what  her  "fast- 
ness" consisted.  This  was  characteristic  of  visitors 
at  Ho-la-le-la:  they  sometimes  stated  facts,  but  never 
talked  scandal.  When  April  asked  them  to  call  her 
by  her  own  name,  instead  of  "Diana,"  they  did  so 
without  comment,  accepting  her  as  one  of  themselves, 
and  asking  no  questions  about  England,  the  voyage, 
or  the  Cape.  The  scandalous  tragedy  of  the  April 
Fool  had  never  reached  them,  and  if  it  had  they  would 
have  taken  little  interest  except  to  be  sorry  for  the  girl. 

In  the  evenings  when  work  was  put  away  Clive 
played  to  them  on  the  'cello. 

"I  was  determined  to  have  music  in  my  life,"  she 
told  April.  "And  as  you  can't  lug  a  piano  and 
musician  all  over  the  shop  with  you,  I  saw  no  way  of 
getting  it  but  to  darn  well  teach  myself." 


April  Folly  341 

And  very  well  she  had  done  it,  though  why  she  had 
chosen  a  'cello,  which  also  needed  some  lugging,  no 
one  knew  but  herself.  Sitting  with  it  between  her 
heavy  boots  and  breeched  legs,  the  eternal  cigarette 
drooping  from  her  mouth,  she  looked  more  than  ever 
like  Galahad,  her  blue  austere  gaze  seeming  to  search 
beyond  the  noble  mountain  tops  of  her  own  pictures 
for  some  Holy  Grail  she  would  never  find.  No  com- 
plicated music  was  hers,  just  grand,  simple  things 
like  Handel's  "Largo,"  Van  Biene's  "Broken  Mel- 
ody," "Ave  Maria,"  or  some  of  Squire's  sweet  airs. 

Sometimes  at  night  they  went  out  and  climbed  upon 
a  huge  rock  that  stood  in  the  apricot  orchard.  It  was 
big  enough  to  build  a  house  on,  and  called  by  Clive 
her  Counsel  Rock,  because  there  she  took  counsel 
with  the  stars  when  things  went  wrong  with  the  farm. 
Lying  flat  on  their  backs  they  could  feel  the  warmth 
of  the  day  still  in  the  stone  as  they  gazed  at  the  purple 
and  silver  panoply  of  heaven  spread  above  them,  and 
Clive  would  commune  with  blue-rayed  Sirius  and  his 
dark  companion;  the  Gemini,  those  radiant  twins; 
Orion's  belt  in  the  centre  sky  preciously  gemmed 
with  celestial  diamonds;  Canopus,  a  calm,  pale  yellow 
star,  the  largest  in  our  universe;  Mars,  gleaming  red 
as  a  madman's  eye;  Venus  springing  from  the  horizon, 
the  Pleiades  slinking  below  it.  The  "galloping  star" 
she  claimed  as  her  own  on  account  of  its  presumed 
horsiness. 

"It's  a  funny  thing,"  she  said.  "My  mother  and 
father  were  gentle,  bookish  creatures  with  no  under- 
standing of  animals.  Even  if  a  pony  had  to  be  bought 
for  us.  children,  every  male  thing  of  the  family- 
uncles,  nephews,  tenth  cousins — was  summoned  from 
every  corner  of  England  for  his  advice  and  experience. 


342  April  Folly 

Yet  these  unsophisticated  beings  have  a  daughter 
like  me — born  into  the  world  a  full-blown  horse- 
dealer!  To  say  nothing  of  mules.  You  can  believe 
me  or  believe  me  not,"  she  added  bragfully,  "but 
there  is  no  one  in  this  land  of  swindles  who  knows 
more  about  mules  than  I  do." 

They  chose  to  believe  her,  especially  after  hearing 
her  haggling  and  bartering  with  some  of  the  itinerant 
dealers  who  visited  the  farm  from  time  to  time. 

"I  don't  know  vy  ve  can't  do  pizness  today!  I 
got  no  profit  in  any  ting.  I  just  been  here  for  a 
friend" — thus  the  dealer. 

"Ah!  I  know  who  your  friend  is,"  Clive  would  jeer 
from  the  stoep.  "  You  keep  him  under  your  own 
hat.  But  don't  come  here  expecting  to  swop  a  beauti- 
ful mule  that  cost  me  £20  for  that  skew-eyed  crock 
that  will  go  thin  as  a  rake  after  three  weeks  on  the 
sour  veld,  a  £10  note  thrown  in,  and  taking  me  for  a 
fool  into  the  bargain.  Your  horse  is  worth  £15,  and 
not  a  bean  more." 

"I  also  must  lif!" — the  whine  of  the  Jew. 

"  I  don't  see  the  necessity."  Clive  shamelessly 
plagiarized  Wilde,  Plato,  or  the  holy  prophets  when 
it  suited  her. 

"Vot,  you  know!  You  can't  do  pizness  with  a 
womans!"  The  dealer  would  weep  tears  of  blood, 
but  Clive  made  the  bargain. 

A  week  slid  past,  and  April  barely  noticed  its  pass- 
ing. No  word  came  from  the  outer  world.  It  was 
not  the  custom  to  read  newspapers  at  Ho-la-le-la, 
and  all  letters  were  stuffed  unopened  into  a  drawer, 
in  case  they  might  be  bills.  Close  friends  were  wise 
enough  to  communicate  by  telegram,  or,  better  still, 
dump  themselves  in  person  upon  the  doorstep.  The 


April  Folly  343 

only  reason  that  April  had  been  expected  and  fetched 
was  that  a  "home  letter"  had  heralded  the  likely 
advent  of  Lady  Diana,  and  given  the  date  and  hotel 
at  which  she  would  be  staying.  Home  letters  were 
never  stuffed  away  unopened. 

Late  one  afternoon,  however,  there  was  an  un- 
expected announcement.  The  bocb-ma-keer-ie  bird 
began  to  cry  in  the  orchard,  and  Clive  said  it  was  a 
surer  sign  of  visitors  than  any  that  came  from  the 
telegraph  office. 

"Tomorrow  is  Sunday.  We'll  have  visitors,  sure 
as  a  gun,"  she  prophesied. 

April  quailed.  She  could  not  bear  the  peaceful 
drifting  to  end,  and  wished  for  no  reminder  of  that 
outer  world  where  Bellew,  the  mail-boat  for  England, 
and  the  dreary  task  of  breaking  an  old  man's  heart 
awaited  her.  Sometimes  in  spite  of  herself  she  was 
obliged  to  consider  these  things,  and  the  considering 
threw  shadows  under  her  eyes  and  hollowed  her 
cheeks.  Sarle,  too,  though  he  was  a  dream  by  day, 
became  very  real  at  night  when  she  should  have  been 
dreaming.  She  knew  now  that  she  could  never  escape 
from  the  memory  of  him,  and  the  thought  that  he 
was  suffering  from  her  silence  and  defection  tortured 
her.  What  must  he  think  of  her,  slinking  guiltily 
away  without  a  word  of  explanation  or  farewell? 
Doubtless  Kenna  would  set  him  right!  "Faithful 
are  the  wounds  of  a  friend,"  she  thought  bitterly. 
Better  far  and  braver  to  have  done  the  explaining 
and  setting  right  herself,  if  only  she  could  have  found 
some  way  of  releasing  herself  from  the  compact  of 
silence  made  with  Diana  and  Bellew. 

Sunday  morning  dawned  very  perfectly.  They 
were  all  sleeping  on  the  stoep,  their  beds  in  line  against 


344  April  Folly 

the  wall,  Clive  upon  the  oak  chest,  which  her  austere 
self-discipline  commanded.  At  three  o'clock,  though 
a  few  stars  lingered,  the  sky  was  already  tinting  itself 
with  the  lovely  lustre  of  a  pink  pearl.  No  sound 
broke  the  stillness  but  the  breathing  of  the  sleepers 
and  the  soft  perpetual  dropping  of  acorns  from  the 
branches  overhead. 

The  peace  and  beauty  of  it  smote  April  to  the  heart. 
She  pressed  her  fingers  over  her  eyes  and  tears  oozed 
through  them,  trickling  down  her  face.  When  at 
last  she  looked  again  the  stars  were  gone  and  the  sky 
was  blue  as  a  thrush's  egg,  with  a  fluff  of  rose-red 
clouds  knitted  together  overhead  and  a  few  crimson 
rags  scudding  across  the  Qua-Quas.  A  dove  suddenly 
cried,  "Choo-coo,  choo-coo,"  and  others  took  up  the 
refrain,  until  in  the  hills  and  woods  hundreds  of  doves 
were  greeting  the  morning  with  their  soft,  thrilling 
cries.  Fowls  straying  from  a  barn  near  by  started 
scratching  in  the  sand.  The  first  streak  of  sunshine 
shot  across  the  hills  and  struck  a  bush  of  pomegranates 
blossoming  scarlet  by  the  gate. 

Presently  the  farm  workers  began  to  come  from  their 
huts  and  file  past  the  stoep  towards  the  outhouses. 
Julie,  the  Cape  foreman,  with  a  right  leg  longer  than 
the  left,  was  the  first  to  stagger  by. 

"Moorer,  Missis!"  he  said,  with  a  pull  of  his  cap 
and  a  swift  respectful  glance  at  the  stoep.  Clive, 
awake  by  now  on  her  oak  chest,  responded  absently 
without  raising  her  head  from  the  pillow. 

"Moorer,  Julie!" 

Next,  Isaac,  whose  legs  were  so  formed  that  when  he 
stood  still  they  described  a  circle,  and  when  he  moved 
the  circle  became  a  triangle. 

"Moorer,  Missis!"  said  he. 


April  Folly  345 

"Moorer,  Isaac!" 

Jim,  the  cowherd,  had  a  hare-lip  and  no  roof  to  his 
mouth,  and  was  so  modest  that  he  turned  his  head 
away  when  he  lisped  his  salutation  to  the  stoep. 

"Moor-ler,  Mithis!" 

"Moorer,  Jim!" 

After  a  few  moment's  silence  a  voice  from  one  of  the 
beds  was  heard. 

"Is  the  file-past  of  the  Decrepits  over?  May  one 
now  sleep  for  a  while?" 

"This  place  ought  to  be  called  des  Invalides," 
grumbled  another. 

Clive  laughed  her  large,  blithe  laugh. 

"At  any  rate,  there's  nothing  wrong  with  me,"  she 
proclaimed,  and  sprang  with  one  leap  into  her  top- 
boots.  Passing  April's  bed  she  touched  the  girl's 
eyelids  tenderly,  and  her  finger-tips  came  away  wet. 

"Nor  with  our  little  April,  I  hope — except  a  pass- 
ing shower!  You  had  better  come  up  the  lands  with 
me  this  morning,  and  plant  trees." 

That  was  Clive's  cure  for  all  ills  of  the  body  and 
soul:  to  plant  trees  that  would  grow  up  and  benefit 
Africa  long  after  the  planters  were  dead  and  forgotten. 
No  one  ever  left  Ho-la-le-la  without  having  had  a 
dose  of  this  medicine,  and  many  an  incipient  forest 
lay  along  the  valleys  and  down  the  sides  of  the  Qua- 
Quas.  So  behold  April  an  hour  or  two  later,  faring 
forth  with  a  pick  and  a  basket  full  of  saplings,  followed 
by  Clive  leading  the  Kerry  cow,  who  was  sick  and 
needed  exercise. 

They  lunched  in  the  open,  resting  from  their 
labours  and  savouring  the  sweetness  of  food  earned 
by  physical  labour.  Care  was  stuffed  out  of  sight, 
dreams  and  ghosts  faded  in  the  clear  sun-beaten  air, 


346  April  Folly 

and  again  April  realized  what  life  could  mean  in  this 
wonderful  land,  given  the  right  companionship,  and  a 
clean  heart.  But  Clive,  with  arms  clasped  about  her 
knees,  sat  munching  apricots  and  staring  with  a 
strange  sadness  at  her  forests  of  baby  trees.  There 
was  an  unfulfilled  look  on  her  face,  spite  of  living  her 
own  life,  and  following  her  star.  Neither  Africa  nor 
life  had  given  her  all  she  needed. 

Later  they  wended  their  way  back  full  of  the  happy 
weariness  engendered  by  honest  toil.  But  nearing 
home  Clive  lifted  her  nose,  and  sniffing  the  breeze  like 
a  wild  ass  of  the  desert  sensing  unfamiliar  things 
scowled  bitterly. 

"Petrol!"  she  ejaculated.  "One  of  those  stinking 
motor-cars!  Why  can't  people  use  horses,  like 
gentlemen?  What's  the  matter  with  a  nice  mule, 
even?" 

As  they  slouched  warily  round  the  house  and  came 
in  view  of  the  stoep  she  emitted  a  staccato  whistle 
of  dismay.  Tethered  out  upon  the  vagabondish 
grass  was — not  one  motor-car,  but  three!  An  opulent 
thing  of  blinking  brass  and  crimson  leather  arrogated 
to  itself  the  exclusive  shade  of  the  largest  tree;  a 
long  grey  torpedo  affair  of  two  seats  occupied  the 
pasturage  of  the  Kerry  cow;  and  blistering  in  the 
sunshine,  with  several  fowls  perched  upon  it,  was  an 
ancient  Ford  wearing  the  roystering  air  of  a  scallywag 
come  home  for  good. 

"That  old  boch-ma-keer-ie  bird  knew  something!" 
muttered  the  painter.  "I  don't  like  the  look  of 
this!" 

They  paused  to  take  counsel  of  each  other,  then 
presently  advanced,  Clive  approaching  her  own 
front  door  with  the  stealthy  glide  of  a  pickpocket, 


April  Folly  347 

April  tip-toeing  behind  her.  The  idea  was  to  get 
indoors  without  being  seen,  listen  in  the  hall  to  dis- 
cover whether  the  visitors  were  agreeable  ones,  and 
if  not,  to  take  refuge  in  the  kitchen  until  they  had 
departed.  Unfortunately  one  of  them  came  out  of 
the  front  door  to  shake  his  pipe  on  the  stoep  as  Clive 
and  April  reached  the  steps. 

"Why,  it's  old  Kerry  Sarle!"  cried  Clive  heartily, 
and  stealth  fell  from  her.  She  beamed  with  happiness, 
and  shook  his  hand  unceasingly,  pouring  forth  ques- 
tions like  water. 

"When  did  you  get  back?  Why  didn't  you  come 
before?  What  did  you  bring  a  crowd  for?  Who 
have  you  got  with  you?" 

"Only  Kenna.  The  crowd  doesn't  belong  to  me. 
They've  come  to  buy  pictures  or  something,  and  are 
in  your  studio.  I  haven't  seen  them.  We  are  in  the 
dining-room." 

His  speech  was  disjointed  and  halting,  his  amazed 
gaze  fixed  upon  the  girl  standing  thunderstruck  at 
the  foot  of  the  steps.  Clive  forged  on  into  the  house 
with  a  gloomy  eye;  she  hated  to  sell  pictures,  even 
when  she  needed  the  money.  April  and  Sarle  were 
left  together,  and  in  a  moment  he  was  down  the  step 
by  her  side.  They  stood  looking  at  each  other  with 
the  memory  of  their  last  kiss  kindling  between  them. 
He  had  been  bitterly  hurt,  but  he  loved  and  trusted 
her  beyond  all  things  that  were,  and  could  not  conceal 
the  happiness  in  his  eyes.  Only  for  the  open  studio 
windows  and  the  round-eyed  piccannins,  he  would 
have  gathered  her  to  his  heart;  as  it  was  he  gathered 
her  hands  instead  and  held  them  where  they  could 
feel  its  beating. 

"Darling!    Thank  God  I  have  found  you." 


348  April  Folly 

Kenna  had  not  betrayed  her,  then.  The  blow  was 
still  to  fall.  She  managed  to  smile  a  little,  but  she 
had  turned  very  pale,  and  there  was  something  in  her 
silence  chilling  even  to  his  ardent  spirit. 

"You  don't  think  I  tracked  you  down?  We 
motored  out  here  with  no  idea  but  to  see  Clive 
Connal " 

"Of  course  not."  She  strove  to  speak  casually. 
"  I  couldn't  expect  to  have  a  friend  like  Clive  all  to 
myself,  but  I  never  dreamed  you  knew  her." 

"  She  has  been  my  friend  for  twelve  years  or  more." 

"Yes,"  said  Kenna's  voice  from  the  stoep,  "we  are 
all  old  friends  together  here." 

He  had  come  out  with  belle  Helene,  and  stood 
smiling  upon  them.  The  old  malice  was  there,  with 
some  new  element  of  strain  that  made  him  look  more 
sardonic,  yet  strangely  pathetic  to  the  girl  who  feared 
him. 

"Who'd  have  thought  to  find  you  here,  Lady  Di?" 
he  sneered  softly.  " Life  is  full  of  pleasant  surprises!" 

They  all  went  into  the  dining-room,  where  tea  was 
laid,  and  Clive  brought  in  her  picture-dealers,  who 
proved  to  be  two  globe-trotters  anxious  to  acquire 
specimens  of  South  African  art.  Someone  had  told 
them  that  Clive  Connal  stood  top  of  the  tree  amongst 
Cape  painters,  so  they  had  spent  about  seven  pounds 
ten  on  a  car  from  Cape  Town  in  the  hope  of  getting 
some  rare  gem  for  a  couple  of  guineas.  One  was  a  fat 
and  pompous  ass,  the  other  a  withered  monkey  of  a 
fellow  who  hopped  about  peering  through  his  monocle 
at  the  pictures  on  the  walls,  uttering  deprecating  criti- 
cism in  the  hope  of  bringing  down  prices. 

"This  sketch  of  Victoria  Falls  is  not  bad,"  he 
piped,  gazing  at  a  thing  of  tender  mists  and  spraying 


April  Folly  349 

water  above  a  titanic  rock-bound  gorge.  "The  left 
foreground  wants  breaking  up  a  bit,  though!" 

"I  think  you  want  breaking  up  a  bit,"  muttered 
Clive,  who  had  already  made  up  her  mind  to  sell  him 
nothing,  and  looking  longingly  at  her  sjambok  lying 
on  the  sideboard.  "Where  are  Ghostie  and  the 
others?"  she  demanded. 

"They  had  tea  by  themselves  in  Ghostie's  room." 
Belle  Helene  proffered  the  statement  rathei  hesitat- 
ingly, and  no  wonder,  in  a  house  where  "  les  amies  de 
mes  amis  sont  mes  amies  "  was  the  rule.  1 1  took  more 
than  that  to  offend  Clive,  but  she  looked  astonished. 

"Oh,  all  right,  then,  let's  have  ours,"  she  said,  and 
sitting  at  the  head  of  her  table  held  the  loaf  of  home- 
made brown  bread  firmly  to  her  breast,  carving  hefty 
slices  and  passing  them  on  the  point  of  the  knife  to 
belle  Helene,  who  jammed  them  from  a  tin.  Customs 
were  simple  and  the  fare  frugal  at  Ho-la-le-la.  There 
were  only  two  teaspoons  between  six,  as  Ghostie  had 
the  other  two  in  her  bedroom.  The  jam  unfortunately 
gave  out  before  the  globe-trotters  got  theirs,  but 
there  was  some  good  dripping — if  they  had  only 
happened  to  like  dripping.  They  seemed  pained 
before  the  end  of  the  meal,  and  one  was  heard  to  mur- 
mur to  the  other  as  they  went  out: 

"Would  you  believe  that  her  father  was  a  clergy- 
man? Bread  and  dripping!  and  jam  scratched  out  of 
a  tin!  This  comes  of  living  in  the  wilds  of  Africa,  I 
suppose.  An  entire  loss  of  culture!" 

The  daughter  of  the  clergyman  must  have  surprised 
them  a  good  deal  by  her  unexpected  spurt  of  holiness 
in  refusing  to  sell  pictures  on  a  Sunday.  They  wound 
up  their  old  taxi  and  went  away  very  much  annoyed 
at  having  come  so  far  for  nothing. 


350  April  Folly 

"Whose  then  is  the  Babylonian  litter  with  trappings 
of  scarlet  and  gold?"  asked  Clive,  as  the  Ford  rattled 
off.  "  You  don't  mean  to  say  you  fellows  came  in  a 
thing  like  that?" 

They  denied  it  until  seventy  times  seven.  The 
grey  torpedo  was  Sarle's.  Kenna  was  of  opinion 
that  the  owners  of  the  crimson  caravan  must  be 
Johannesburgers,  and  "dripping  with  it." 

"Not  Johannesburgers,"  disputed  Clive,  with  a 
wry  lip.  "No;  they're  too  exclusive  for  that." 

Something  must  have  gone  very  wrong  indeed 
with  the  atmosphere  for  Clive  to  start  sneering.  In 
truth  some  jangling  element  unnatural  to  the  sweet 
accord  of  Ho-la-le-la  had  been  introduced,  and  did  not 
leave  with  the  strangers. 

They  settled  down  to  smoke  in  the  studio,  but 
there  was  more  smoke  about  than  tranquillity.  Sarle 
seemed  distrait.  Belle  Helene  sometimes  cast  an 
uneasy  glance  at  April,  who,  still  very  pale,  sat  by 
herself  on  the  lounge.  Only  Clive  and  Kenna  talked 
racily,  but  in  jerks,  of  cattle,  fruit-blight,  mules, 
and  white  ants.  But  presently  all  subjects  of 
conversation  seemed  to  peter  out,  leaving  a  dark 
pool  of  silence  to  form  between  them  in  the  room. 
Kenna  it  was  who  threw  the  stone  disturbing  those 
still  waters. 

"Has  any  one  told  you,  Miss  Connal,  about  the 
girl  who  committed  suicide  on  the  Clarendon  Castle?" 

For  a  full  moment  not  a  word  was  spoken.  Sarle, 
staring,  made  a  movement  with  his  hand  over  his  mat 
of  hair.  April's  lids  fell  over  her  eyes  as  though 
afflicted  by  a  deadly  weariness.  Clive  changed  her 
cigarette  from  one  corner  of  her  mouth  to  the  other 
before  answering  briefly: 


April  Folly  351 

"Yes;  I  know  all  about  it."  Which  seemed  to 
astonish  Kenna. 

"Oh!"  he  exclaimed.     "  I  wish  I  did!" 

It  was  Sarle's  turn  to  look  astonished. 

"Why,  Kenna,  I  told  you  everything  there  was  to 
know.  Besides,  it  was  in  the  papers." 

"No,  Kerry.  You  told  me  something  .  .  .  and 
the  papers  told  me  something.  Everything  can 
only  be  related  by  one  person."  Dramatically  he 
fixed  his  glance  upon  that  person.  There  was  no 
mistaking  the  challenge.  April  found  courage  to 
return  his  glance,  but  her  eyes  looked  like  the  eyes 
of  a  drowning  girl.  At  the  sight  of  them  two 
people  were  moved  to  action.  Belle  Helene  rose 
and  slipped  from  the  room.  Sarle  also  rose,  but 
it  was  to  seat  himself  again  by  April's  side  on  the 
lounge. 

"I  don't  understand  what  all  this  is  about,"  he 
said  quietly,  "but  it  seems  a  good  time  for  you  to 
know,  Kenna,  and  you,  Clive,  that  we" — he  took 
April's  hand  in  his — "are  engaged,  and  going  to  be 
married  as  soon  as  possible." 

Kenna  looked  at  him  with  pity  and  tenderness. 

"You  had  better  let  her  speak,  old  man.  It  is 
time  you  were  undeceived." 

"  Be  careful,  Kenna." 

"  My  dear  Kerry,  do  you  suppose  that  it  gives  me 
any  pleasure  to  cause  you  pain,  or  to  distress  this 
charming  lady?  Only  my  friendship  for  you " 

"I  can  dispense  with  it,"  Sarle  curtly  interrupted. 

"Ah!  That's  the  way  when  a  woman  steps  in." 
Kenna's  lips  twisted  in  a  bitter  grin.  Sarle  turned  to 
April. 

"Diana  .      ." 


352  April  Folly 

"That  is  the  very  crux  of  the  matter,"  rapped  out 
Kenna.  "She  is  not  Diana." 

"What  in  God's  name ?"  began  Sarle. 

"What  I  want  to  know,"  pursued  Kenna  sombrely, 
"is — why,  if  Diana  Vernilands  jumped  overboard, 
does  this  girl  go  masquerading  under  her  title?" 

"Are  you  mad?"  Sarle  stared  from  one  to  the 
other.  "Haven't  you  known  her  all  your  life?  Did 
you  not  meet  as  old  friends?" 

Kenna  shrugged.  "  I  never  set  eyes  on  her  until 
that  day  at  the  'Mount  Nelson.'  She  was  a  friend 
of  yours  and  chose  to  call  herself  by  the  name  of  a 
friend  of  mine,  and  ...  I  humoured  her  .  .  .  and 
you.  But  the  thing  has  gone  too  far.  After  inquiries 
among  other  passengers  I  have  realized  the  truth — 
that  it  was  Diana  who  ..."  A  spasm  of  pain 
flickered  across  his  melancholy  eyes.  Sarle,  in  grave 
wonder  and  hurt,  turned  to  April. 

"  It  is  true,"  she  cried  bitterly,  pierced  to  the  heart 
by  his  look.  "  Diana  is  drowned.  I  am  a  masquer- 
ader."  Even  if  she  had  been  nothing  to  him  he  could 
not  have  remained  unmoved  by  the  desperate  pleading 
of  her  eyes.  But  he  happened  to  love  her  with  the 
love  that  casts  out  fear,  and  distrust,  and  all  mis- 
understanding. 

"I  am  the  real  April  Poole,"  she  said,  broken,  but 
resolute  that  at  least  there  should  be  no  further  mis- 
take. He  gave  her  one  long  look,  then  lifted  her  hand, 
and  held  it  closer.  The  gesture  was  for  all  the  world 
to  see.  But  Kenna  had  not  finished  with  her. 

"You  will  allow  a  natural  curiosity  in  me  to  demand 
why  you  should  wear  the  name  and  retain  the  posses- 
sions of  my  friend  Lady  Diana  Vernilands?"  he  asked, 
dangerously  suave. 


April  Folly  353 

Then  Clive  sprang  full-armed  to  the  fray. 

"And  you  will  allow  a  natural  curiosity  in  me  to 
demand  why  you  should  harry  my  friend  like  this — 
browbeat  her  for  a  girlish  folly  entered  into  mutually 
by  two  girls  and  ending  in  tragedy  through  no  fault  of 
April's?"  The  painter's  eyes  burned  with  a  blue  fire 
bleak  as  her  own  mountain  tops.  It  was  as  though 
Joan  of  Arc  had  come  to  the  rescue  and  was  sweeping 
the  room  with  valiant  sword.  Even  Kenna  was 
partially  intimidated. 

"That  is  her  story,"  he  muttered. 

"You  fool,  Ronald  Kenna,"  she  said  gently. 
"Can't  you  look  in  her  face  and  see  there  is  no  touch 
of  treachery  or  darkness  there?  Thank  God,  Kerry 
is  not  so  blind." 

There  was  a  deep  silence.    Then  she  said: 

"Listen,  then,  to  my  story,"  and  repeated  the  facts 
April  had  told  her,  but  as  April  could  never  have 
told  them,  so  profound  was  her  understanding  of  the 
motives  of  the  two  girls  in  exchanging  identities,  so 
tender  her  treatment  of  the  wayward  Diana.  Truly 
this  "unfulfilled  woman"  was  greater  in  the  width 
and  depth  of  her  soul  than  many  of  those  to  whom  life 
has  given  fulfilment  of  their  dreams. 

Daylight  faded,  and  shadows  stole  through  the 
open  windows.  In  the  large,  low-ceiled  room  clustered 
with  saddles  and  harness  and  exquisite  pictures, 
everything  grew  dim,  except  their  white  faces,  and  the 
glistening  of  tears  as  they  dripped  from  April's  lids. 

"I  must  ask  to  be  forgiven,"  said  Kenna  very 
humbly,  at  last.  "  My  only  plea  is  that  my  friendship 
for  Kerry  blinded  me.  And  ..."  he  halted  an 
instant  before  the  confession  of  his  trouble.  "  I  once 
loved  that  little  wayward  girl." 

23 


354  April  Folly 

So  it  was  Diana  Vernilands  who  had  proved  false 
and  sent  him  into  the  wilds !  Somehow  that  explained 
much  to  them  all:  much  for  forgiveness,  but  very 
much  more  for  pity  and  sympathy. 

Suddenly  the  peace  of  eventide  was  rudely  shattered 
by  the  jarring  clank  of  a  motor  being  geared-up  for 
starting.  Evidently  Ghostie's  friends  were  departing 
in  the  same  aloof  spirit  with  which  they  had  held 
apart  all  the  afternoon.  No  one  in  the  studio  stirred 
to  speed  the  parting  guests.  It  did  not  seem  fitting 
to  obtrude  upon  the  pride  of  the  great.  A  woman's 
voice  bade  good-bye,  and  Ghostie  was  heard  warning 
them  of  a  large  rock  fifty  yards  up  the  lane.  A  man 
called  good-night,  and  they  were  off. 

"By  Jove!  I  know  that  fellow's  voice,"  puzzled 
Sarle.  April  thought  she  did  too,  but  she  was  in  a 
kind  of  happy  trance  where  voices  did  not  matter. 
The  next  episode  was  Ghostie  at  the  studio  window 
blotting  out  the  evening  skies. 

"They  have  gone,"  she  timidly  announced. 

"Ah!  Joy  go  with  them,"  remarked  Clive,  more 
in  relief  than  regret. 

"  But  there  is  still  one  of  them  in  my  room." 

"What?" 

"She  has  been  waiting  to  speak  to  you  all  the 
afternoon;  they  all  have,  but  they  could  not  face  the 
crowd." 

"  Pore  fellers, "  said  Clive,  with  cutting  irony. 

"The  one  in  my  room's — a  girl,"  said  Ghostie — 
"a  friend  of  yours." 

"She  has  strange  ways,"  commented  Clive  glumly. 
"  But  ask  her  to  come  in.  These  also  are  my  friends." 

Ghostie  disappeared.  Simultaneously  the  two  men 
arose;  remarking  that  they  must  be  going — they  had 


April  Folly  9     355 

stayed  too  late,  and  it  was  getting  dark.  Clive 
easily  shut  them  up. 

"Of  course  you  can't  go.  Stay  to  supper  and  go 
back  by  the  light  of  the  moon.  We've  got  to  have 
some  music  and  sit  on  the  Counsel  Rock,  and  eat — 
apricots  and  all  sorts  of  things  yet.  And  afterwards 
we'll  come  a  bit  of  the  way  with  you." 

They  did  not  need  much  persuasion  to  settle  down 
again.  Clive  handed  round  smokes. 

"We  won't  spoil  the  best  hour  of  the  day  by  light- 
ing the  lamp,  "she  said.  They  waited.  In  a  minute 
or  so  they  heard  the  strange  girl  approaching.  The 
house  consisted  of  a  number  of  rooms  built  in  the  form 
of  a  square  round  a  little  back  courtyard.  Each 
room  led  into  the  other,  but  had  also  an  outer  door. 
Ghostie's  room  was  third  from  the  studio,  with  one 
between,  unused  because  of  huge  holes  in  the  floor. 
It  was  through  this  dilapidated  chamber  that  the  girl 
could  now  be  heard  approaching,  clicking  her  high 
heels  and  picking  her  way  delicately  by  the  aid  of  a 
candle  whose  beams  showed  under  the  door  and 
flicked  across  the  courtyard  at  the  back.  In  spite  of 
its  light  she  caught  one  of  her  high  heels  in  a  hole,  and 
a  faint  but  distinctly  naughty  word  was  heard,  fol- 
lowed by  a  giggle.  As  she  reached  the  door  she  blew 
out  the  candle.  They  heard  the  puff  of  her  breath, 
as  plainly  as  they  had  heard  the  naughty  word. 
Then  she  stood  in  the  open  doorway,  visible  only 
because  she  wore  a  white  dress. 

"Come  in,"  said  Clive  with  politeness,  but  irony 
not  quite  gone  from  her  voice.  The  figure  did  not 
stir  or  speak.  For  some  reason  unknown  to  her, 
April  felt  the  hair  on  her  scalp  stir  as  though  a  chill 
wind  had  blown  through  it.  And  the  same  wind  sent  a 


356  April  Folly 

thrill  down  her  backbone.  Clive  repeated  the  invi- 
tation, somewhat  sharply,  and  then  the  girl  spoke. 

"  I'm  ashamed  to  come  in." 

The  voice  was  timid,  and  very  low,  but  it  was 
enough  to  make  April  give  a  broken  cry  and  hide  her 
face  in  Sarle's  shoulder.  Kenna  leapt  to  his  feet,  and 
next  moment  the  yellow  spurt  of  a  lighted  match  in 
his  hand  revealed  the  drooping  face  of  the  girl  in  the 
doorway. 

"MyGod!     Diana!" 

"Yes;  isn't  it  awful!"  she  said  mournfully.  "I 
know  I  ought  to  be  dead,  but  I'm  not.  How  do  you 
do,  Ronny?" 

She  passed  him  and  came  slowly  across  the  room  to 
the  girl  who  was  trembling  violently  against  Sarle's 
shoulder.  The  strain  of  the  day,  ending  in  this,  was 
almost  more  than  April  Poole  could  bear. 

"  Don't  be  frightened,  April."  She  was  genuinely 
concerned.  "It  is  really  me  and  not  my  ghost. 
You  see,  I  never  jumped  overboard  at  all,  but  simply 
hid  in  one  of  Geoffrey  Bellew's  big  packing-cases.  I 
really  could  not  face  those  enraged  beasts  and  Philis- 
tines any  longer." 

There  was  an  amazed  and  gasping  silence,  but  Diana 
in  the  middle  of  the  limelight  was  in  her  element,  and 
rapidly  regained  her  spirits.  She  tripped  to  Clive 
and  shook  her  warmly  by  the  hand. 

"So  pleased  to  see  you.  I  should  have  come  out 
here  long  ago,  but  I  got  so  knocked  about  in  the  pack- 
ing-case that  I  had  to  go  to  bed  and  be  nursed  by 
Geoff's  old  aunt  at  Wynberg.  Everything  perfectly 
proper,  so  don't  be  alarmed.  She  chaperoned  us  out 
here  this  afternoon,  you  know,  and  would  have  liked 
to  see  you,  but  really  it  was  rather  awkward  with 


April  Folly  357 

Ronny  and  Major  Sarle  turning  up  immediately  after- 
wards. We  didn't  expect  to  find  April  here  either — 
naturally.  That  was  a  nasty  bang  in  the  eye.  I 
begged  Ghostie  to  hide  me  in  her  room,  and  we  waited 
and  waited,  but  these  terrible  men  seem  to  have  taken 
root  here."  She  twinkled  at  them  gaily,  but  no  one 
appeared  to  have  recovered  sufficiently  from  shock  to 
reciprocate  her  pert  amusement. 

"  So  at  last,  of  course,  1  had  to  bundle  them  off  and 
face  the  music  alone.  Especially  as  belle  Helene  told 
me  there  was  some  sort  of  trouble  boiling  up  in  here 
for  poor  April." 

"  I  suppose  you  never  realized  that  trouble  has  been 
boiling  up  for  her  ever  since  you  disappeared?"  said 
Clive. 

"Oh,  but  of  course;  and  I've  been  dreadfully 
sorry,  and  worrying  myself  to  ribbons." 

"It  doesn't  seem  to  have  interfered  with  your 
health,"  was  dive's  only  rejoinder.  "May  one  ask 
what  you  intended  to  do  to  put  things  straight?" 

Diana  had  the  grace  to  look  slightly  abashed — only 
slightly. 

"There  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  come  out  here  to 
you  and  sit  tight  until  the  scandal  had  blown  over, 
while  April  returned  to  England.  Once  she  got  on 
board  she  would  have  found  a  letter  telling  her  it  was 
all  right,  and  that  I  was  not  dead  at  all." 

"Very  charming  and  considerate  too!"  commented 
Ronald  Kenna  acidly.  "A  few  other  people,  including 
Sarle  and  myself,  might  have  been  dead  in  the  mean- 
time, but  what  would  that  have  mattered?" 

It  was  no  use  being  acid  with  Diana,  however.  She 
was  riotously  pleased  with  herself,  and  bubbling  over 
with  pride  in  her  cleverness,  and  joy  in  her  escape  from 


358  April  Folly 

seclusion.  Infection  from  her  light-heartedness  was 
almost  impossible,  and  once  the  shock  had  passed, 
April  easily  forgave  her  the  cruel  and  thoughtless  part 
she  had  played,  the  hours  of  anguish  she  had  given. 
Sarle  and  Kenna  exchanged  one  grim  glance,  but  it 
ended  in  a  smile.  The  deep-rooted  friendships  of 
men  do  not  hurry  to  such  short  and  poor  conclusions. 
Besides,  Sarle  had  come  that  day  to  the  attainment  of 
his  heart's  desire,  and  was  not  inclined  to  fall  out  with 
either  Fate  or  friends.  As  for  Kenna,  looking  at  the 
gilt-haired  minx  who  held  his  heart-strings,  he  saw  as 
in  a  vision  that  days  of  peaceful  loneliness  on  the  veld 
were  passing,  and  the  future  held  more  uneasiness  and 
folly  than  the  mere  month  of  April  could  cover.  He 
would  need  all  the  friends  he  had  to  see  him  through. 


J}  Selection  from  the 
Catalogue  of 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


Complete   Catalogues  sent 
on  application 


"  A.  booK  wHose  many  merits  maKe  it  quite 
distinctly  a  conspicuous  volume  in  current 
fiction." — The  Bookman. 

"  A  vivid  story  of  a  girl's  life  In  South  Africa." 

THE  CLAW 

A  Story  of  South  Africa 

By  Cynthia  Stockley 

Author  of  "  Poppy, "  etc. 
From  James  L.  Ford's  long  review  in  the  N.  Y.  Herald: 

"  The  quality  of  interest  that  it  posesses  in  a  marked 
degree  begins  in  its  very  first  page  and  continues  in  con- 
stantly growing  strength  until  the  final  denouement 

"  Innumerable  feminine  touches  of  exquisite  delicacy  and 
naturalness.  We  catch  glimpses  not  only  of  a  beauty- 
ful  woman,  but  of  a  feminine  soul  filled  with  religion  that 
knows  no  cant  and  at  the  same  time  instinct  with  innocent 
coquetry  and  that  desire  to  please  which  makes  for  love- 
liness in  the  eyes  of  men.  ...  A  story  so  vivid  and 
interesting." 
Chicago  Inter-Ocean: 

"  The  writer  of  these  lines  cannot  recall  a  novel  heroine 
more  sweet  and  straight  and  lovable  and  big  of  heart,  and 
true  and  just  of  thought,  and  merciful,  than  is  fair  Deirdre 
Saurin  (bless  her !)  of  The  Claw. 

"  The  Claw  has  claims  to  a  cordial  appreciation  on  the 
part  of  very  many  readers  who  are  fond  of  stirring,  living 
stories  fitly  told." 
With  Frontispiece.     $1.50  net.     (By  mail,  $1.65) 

New  York       G.    P.    PUTNAM'S   SONS       London 


"No  one  who  reads  it  can  ever  forget  it." 
JUbany  Times-Union. 


POPPY 

The  Story  of  a  South  African  Girl 

By  CyntKia  StocKley 

Author  of  "The  Claw" 

"Breezy  freshness,  strong  masculinity,  and 
almost  reckless  abandon  in  the  literary  texture  and 
dramatic  inventions." — Phila.  North  American. 

"  Has  a  charm  that  is  difficult  to  describe." 
St.  Louis  Post-Dispatch. 

"  A  book  of  many  surprises,  and  a  fresh  new 
kind  of  heroine — strong,  sweet,  and  unconven- 
tional."—^1/. Paul  Pioneer  Press. 

"  Extremely  interesting — so  much  life,  ardor, 
and  color." — New  York  Herald. 

"  Shows  undoubted  power."— N.  Y.  Times. 


Fifteenth  Printing 
With  Frontispiece.     $I.SO  net.     (fl.65  by  mail) 


NewYorK     G.  P.   Putnam's  Sons 


London 


The 
Lady  from  Long  Acre 

By 
Victor  Bridges 

Author  of  "  A  Rogue  by  Compulsion  " 


As  Sir  Antony  Conway,  better  known 
as  Tony,  and  Tiger  Bugg,  hero  of  the 
prize  ring,  are  passing  Long  Acre  one 
dark  night,  they  see  a  young  woman 
evidently  seeking  escape  from  two  well- 
dressed  men.  Tony  and  Tiger  act 
quickly,  and  thereby  plunge  into  a  series 
of  amazing  and  fantastic  adventures, 
which  are  related  with  dramatic  force 
and  keen-edged  satire. 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  London 


That  Which  Hath  Wings 

By 
Richard  Dehan 

Author  of  "  One  Braver  Thing," «'  Between  Two  Thiere*," 
"The  Man  of  Iron,"  etc. 


12°.     $1.60  net.     By  mail,  $1.75 


The  author's  splendid  story-telling  gift 
triumphs  again  in  the  creation  of  strong 
characters  and  dramatic  situations  and  the 
picturization  of  Europe  hovering  on  the  brink 
of  Armageddon — hectic,  pleasure-seeking 
countries,  living  in  false  security,  and  form- 
ing a  contrasting  prelude  to  the  greatest  of 
world  tragedies.  A  novel  vibrating  with 
action,  in  which  there  is  love,  but  beset  with 
obstacles,  and  villainy  which  meets  its  match. 
Several  of  the  characters  familiar  to  readers 
of  One  Braver  Thing  ("The  Dop  Doctor") 
again  make  their  appearance  under  circum- 
stances that  intensify  their  interest.  A 
colorful  story  of  love  and  war,  of  wrath  and 
humor,  masterfully  told. 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  London 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


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